We spent nine days at
Don Carter StatePark in Gainesville, Georgia. The park is situated on the Lanier Lake
in the area of Lulu. It is a relatively new park, becoming official
in 2002, named to honor Don Carter who serving on the Georgia
Department of Natural Resources board for 29 years, dedicated much of
his work to establish Lake Lanier’s first state park.
The park is
beautiful and the campground is so well laid out. Each site is either
terraced or offset, meaning always a view of the trees, and/or lake
without having to look through your neighbor's window. The sites
spacious and many are pull throughs with availability to larger
units. It is well maintained and the bathouses are clean and heated!
In addition to the RV
Campground, there is a section for tent camping
as well as large, two bedroom cottages. Well staffed and friendly
campstore/office, always ready to answer your questions and help as
they can.
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| Playground and Fitness! |
Beach area, nature activities and kayaks rentals in season,
playground and fitness areas. Speaking of the last two, the
playground near the campground has the fitness equipment right next
to it. Imagine kids can play and the folks can get a workout keeping
an eye out easily. This makes sense!There is a large area for
Equestrian Trailer Parking and miles of trails for riding.
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About one foot wide trail here
and yep straight down |
The biggest draw to this park at
least for us, the hiking and the views. There is officially 12.5
miles of hiking trails. The individual trails are between a half mile
to two miles; but the way most are laid out there are plenty of
interconnections to make you hiking as long or short as you like.
Putting together loops in the one area you could hike almost twelve
miles! Just keep in mind you are in the mountains and some of those
inclines are rather steep, as we found out, LOL. We were able to hike
almost all of the trails during our stay, going between three to five
miles each time. Of course, the one day we planned out our hike and
saw it was a bit longer than usual adding another mile to it. Eh,
whats another mile, right?!? HA well by time we got back it was
probably closer to seven miles with lots and I mean lots of inclines
and declines; we were DONE! But oh so worth it. The lake can be
viewed from so many vantage points, each as beautiful as the next.
The trails are well marked in most areas (umm if you manage to get to
Whale Tale Spur Trail be vigilant in watching for those markers, lots
of downed trees makes it easy to get temporarily displaced, not that
we would have had that experience, hehehe) though there are areas in which the trail is very narrow, a bank on one side, and a long way down on the other. Makes for a rather intense passing.
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| Magical Grove of American Holly |
On the trail not far from our site we
went through this absolutely magical grove of Holly Trees. There were
hundreds of them and we hiked right through the middle. They
surrounded the trail and made like an arbor above us. Magical,
Delightful, Wonderful.
A side note: One day hiking we met up
with another hiker (Being off season at the park this was actually
unusual, mostly we were on our own on the trails.) While stopping to
check out a salamander that zip across the trail, a lovely lady Lori,
caught up to us. She was hiking alone and does so regularly, pleasant
to chat with we hiked together for quite a distance, Why she stands
out to me is she was around our age perhaps even a little older, man
was she spry. She wasted no time climbing up the steepness of
certain areas, and again she has no qualms hiking alone. Smart,
active, fit, intelligent, fun, yep she is of the people I will hold
in my mind when a bit of inspiration is needed.
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| The Singing Tree |
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Yep We made it through
climbing over, under, and through! |
Combining the more strenuous hiking
with fun relaxing hikes along the shore of the lake with all the entertaining climbing in, over, through the fallen trees, was perfect.
Can't forget our delightful experience I posted about early with our
singing tree!! Great memories, great activities, great place, great
time! I do feel this is why I tend to like State Parks over private
campgrounds, better access to hiking.
On this stop we were able to meet up
with friends, Wendy and Eric came by to check out our RV, then took
us out to lunch for an afternoon of catching up, sharing news, lots
of laughter and lots of love.
Oh another fun find, one day while
scrounging around for kindling, Paul suddenly called to me. I quickly
went to find out what he needed and were we both surprised to
discover not twenty yards up behind our campsite; a very, old, family
cemetery plot!! Certainly not what one would expect to find. The
headstones so old you couldn't read them. The two that you could had
the dates of 1865 and 1894. Yep, you never know what we will discover
on our travels!
Usually, by the time a week rolls
around we are more than ready to leave and head to the next place,
but this time, no, we could have easily stayed longer. Oh, well time
to move on as we slowly make our way down through Georgia.
But Oh The Views!!!
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Lunch time!
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| American BeautyBerry New discovery for me! |
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| Getting through this should be fun! |
Our next stop in Georgia, brought us to North Shore Landing in the Greensboro area, right on Lake Oconee. The campground was nice enough but the view was spectacular. We were backed up right to the lake. Got to spend many an hour just watching the herons, cormorants, gulls, fish jumping, and the kingfishers flying to and fro. Even got to see a young Bald Eagle. And the sunrises and sunsets amazing, Yep my kind of paradise.
