Saturday, April 6, 2024:
Spending the night at: Minooka Park Campground near Jemison Alabama, with OHV trails!!
$23.50/night plus $25 OHV riding fee for the whole length of stay, plus tax = $76.78 for two nights. Site B on the passenger’s side has 50 amp power, water, and took a bit of jockeying to get backed into since the pad is only about 12’ wide. It is a beautiful clean campground and site with enough parking for Nitro, Henry and Kawi, and enough cell signal to send pictures.
Weather- clear and mild: Hi 71, low 45, Humidity Hi 99%, low 32 – a lil muggy for sleeping with the windows open.
Today was a much nicer commute! We traveled about 340 miles, and the first 140 were on I-10 which at times was a ghost freeway. So nice!
Once we got to Marianne Florida we needed to turn and go north. Well, there are no interstate freeways that go north from here, so we traveled some state highways and saw lots of little and not-so-little towns. Once we got to Montgomery, we could follow I-65 since it is the main drag up to Birmingham, and our camping spot is just a few miles off of I-65.
My challenge all day was routing us on roads that were safe for Nitro, since he’s over 13’ tall. Believe me when I say that you cannot trust the Google with this!! You know, there are primary roads, secondary roads, third and fourthiary roads… and dirt roads. Google will use them all without regard to anything but distance and time, to save you one minute in a 6.5 hour drive. I always preview the route and wonder why we need to take a farm road that could have low trees or wires when there is a main highway just two miles further down the road. I usually guess at the most likely primary and secondary roads and put “stops” into the route to force it to go where I want, but that still makes me nervous. We previously had a subscription to “RV Life” which made RV safe routes, but that subscription expired. So before renewing it, I looked for a truckers app and found “TruckMap” which is free. You can put in your vehicle specs and it will build a safe route. I tried it today and I liked what it came up with so decided to use it and try it out. The only problem is that it is not compatible with Apple CarPlay which we use to display our pre-planned navigation route on the screen in Henry so that the captain can see it. You know that a navigator’s job is never done or easy, right. I used both of our phones to map out the Trucker map on one and match it up using the Google map on the other, because that one DOES display through CarPlay. I just have to put in intermediate “stops” to force it to map out the route we want. Between that and calculating miles and finding appropriate fuel stops, I wasn’t bored today. I have numerous apps that I consult for the best fuel prices. We can only go to truck stops so that we can be sure to fit and have easy entry and exit maneuvers. It’s a lot more complicated planning routes and stuff for road trips in this big rig than in my little car!! Not to mention the pre-planning of finding campgrounds that are accessible for a 35’ trailer. It’s a good thing I love doing this stuff!! :). Planning really is my jam.
We popped into Central Time Zone before noon, so we gained an hour in our day today. Then within an hour we were entering Alabama as we headed north. No big “Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama” on this road. OH! Something we noticed was that there were several large liquor stores in Florida just before the state line, and the parking lots were busy! I guess that tells us that Florida prices are better than Bama!
One of our kids asked how we were doing, so I sent him a picture. Heehee!!
We made it to Minooka Park at about 3:30 CDT, so it was about a seven hour day today, but not nearly as tiring as yesterday was! I know – 340 miles in 7 hours? Yep…. with state highways, potty and fuel stops, we usually figure about 50mph average. And even when we’re on an interstate, we only go about 60-65mph.
I had made a reservation through e-mail for Minooka Park Campground about a month ago for our trailer size and needs. They charge $25/power & water, $35 for power, water & sewer. Being my cheapskate self, I told them we didn’t need sewer, cuz heck – we can boondock for a week. When we pulled up to the gate house, the old gentleman looked at our rig, and said “Oh! You’re a big one! I think you’ll fit.” UH-OH. I told him we’d be happy to take another site if he had anything available if he thought something else would be better for us. Now I find out that they only have five sites without sewer. Hey – it’s OK. We’ll upgrade if we need a bigger spot. He decided we’d probably be fine, but he’d send a ranger up after us to make sure. We pulled up to our site B, and it is beautifuł! and it’s plenty big enough for us. We stopped on the road and started to unload Kawi and the ranger showed up. We assured him we’d be fine here. Kenny got us jockeyed in and back as far as we could go on the concrete pad that’s just a bit wider than the trailer. Plenty of room.
The campground is really, I mean REALLY nice…. especially when you consider that it has OHV trails and there are dirt bikes and buggies buzzing around. Usually an OHV campground is dirty and dusty and pretty rough. This is like a park with nice grassy spots, concrete pads, gravel for the off-road vehicles…. a beautiful surprise! HA! So far I am two for two on nice camping spots!
We were given maps of the two trail systems, so we took Kawi out for a short spin to acquaint ourselves with the lay of the land. The trails have a nice variety of terrain, so we’ll have some fun tomorrow. There isn’t a lot of miles to travel, but most of the trails are one-way and it isn’t like a normal OHV park where people are blasting around like nuts. I think it’ll be fun. Stay tuned!