Our Weekend at Unicoi

We had a really nice weekend up at Unicoi State Park, near Helen. I went up on Friday afternoon and set up and the Michele came and joined me with the kids that night. We stayed until Sunday afternoon and hit the road for home around lunchtime.

First let me give a shout out to my new GPS. Figuring out directions and reading maps in areas I’m not familiar with can be stressful and often a cause for in-car fighting between me and the wife. But my new Garmin made it really easy. Going home though, I discovered quickly that the way it directed me back home on streets I knew wasn’t exactly the fastest way, but I decided to ignore it. But if you’re going someplace new, who cares if the way it gives you isn’t the fastest? It gets you there and eliminates the stress. And being able to locate gas stations and restaurants on the fly is very helpful as well.

Here are some photos from the weekend…

Unicoi is a really nice park. And may I also compliment their shop by the campsites for actually stocking useful items. At Red Top they just sell souveneirs and crap. I asked for a hose washer the last time we were there and the girlo looked at me like I was toalking another language. At Unicoi though, if you forget something basic like soap, cooking oil or yes, even a hose washer, you can find it there.

We had a full hookup site which included the sewer. Our sewer hose didn’t actually reach that far so we couldn’t keep it hooked up but it did save us a special trip to the dumping station when we left. The sites were a little more cramped than what we were used to, but still pretty nice. When we go back to Unicoi the next time, we’ll get one of the partial hookups which has electricity and water, but no sewer. The campsites are much more spacious and wooded.

We went to Helen on Saturday and had a nice time there as well. It’s got that whole Alpine village thing going which makes it especially fun for kids. We walked, had lunch, bought Izzy some shiny rocks, got some candy and then went back to the campsite and hung out before dinner.

We don’t have any pictures of this unfortunately but I set up what Michele called a “Dinner Impossible” kitchen outside with my grill and camping stove and made chili which we ate outside. Good times, chili by the fire.

And in a note on personal achievement, driving the Winnie is really not nearly as scary as it used to be. It’s actually getting a little too comfortable maybe. I’m sort of enjoying coming around a turn and seeing all the cars practically jump off the road and onto the shoulder in fear. And, as the wife noted after we were done, parking it in storage was not terrible either. I actually managed to get that done in just a few minutes. The first time it was a 20 minute ordeal.

No updates yet on when the next trip will be. Campsgiving is set though, more details to come on that.