Whitetail Ridge Campground LaGrange, Georgia Sept. 29 – Oct. 1, 2025

We left Twin Lakes Campground on Monday, September 29th around 10:45 am for a 4-hour drive to Whitetail Ridge Campground near LaGrange, Georgia for what was SUPPOSED to be a 14-night stay. But as we made that drive and arrived onsite we weren’t sure exactly how long we would be there due to the (at the time) possible Federal government shutdown. Since Whitetail Ridge is a USACE campground, if the Federal government shuts down then most likely the campground will as well since it is considered a “non-essential service” by the powers that be.

Although, when I asked the host as we checked in, if the campground would close if the government did, he assured me it would not. But we’ve been through this before (unfortunately) and knew that they most likely would.

Checking With USACE

After we got set up, Cindy called the regional USACE office and the receptionist said, “Well, we don’t know if there will be a shutdown” which is what they are instructed to say so Cindy pressed her and asked, “But if there IS a shutdown, will Whitetail Ridge Campground close?”

“Yes,” she replied, “I guess it would.”

Cindy informed her that the camp host insists it will not close so they might want to let him know, but whether they ever did that or not we don’t know.

To give us both peace of mind, Cindy had earlier booked a back-up site at a state park,which is not in danger of a Federal shutdown, 60 miles north of Whitetail Ridge. They are more expensive AND waiting until the last minute to cancel greatly reduces your refund amount, but it was better to know we had a place to stay if Whitetail Ridge closed.

But for the time being we had a a nice site at Whitetail Ridge; one we picked when we were here last year around this time. Level concrete pad with 30 amp and water. Nice view of the ever-dwindling West Point Lake.

And there are no acorns hitting the roof and upsetting Bella.

September 29th also marked 15 years since our beloved Wolf passed away unexpectedly at our cabin in North Carolina. It was a sad remembrance.

Tuesday morning we hiked around the various campground loops with Bella. The campground was not very full. We remembered that, when we were here last year but a couple of weeks later in the year, it was pretty filled with campers.

Throughout the day, several votes to keep the government open failed to pass.

Spam Call Relief

We decided that night to go ahead and update our iPhones and iPads to iOS 26. The BEST new feature is the phone message system. If a number that is NOT in your contacts calls, the phone will not ring on your end. Instead, the caller will get a message asking for their name and the purpose of their call. If they provide that, the phone will ding a text on your phone screen with that info and you can choose to answer the phone if it’s someone calling you want to speak with. If you do not wish to speak to them, the call will disconnect and you never have to interact with them OR even hear the phone ringing.

Talk about cutting down on aggravating spam phone calls. Poor Cindy was getting upwards of 30 a day recently. This should help tremendously with those.

Government Shutdown

Wednesday morning we awoke to news that the Federal government had shut down at midnight and the head of the Office of Management and Budget had sent out directives to each federal agency to implement their shut down plan.

Apparently, USACE did not have a shut down plan.

Cindy called the regional office again and this time spoke to a ranger instead of the receptionist. The ranger stated they had not received any guidance on whether to close the campgrounds or when that would happen.

Cindy and I talked it over and, rather than be left wondering if the campground would close or when it would close, for our own peace of mind decided to go ahead and leave Whitetail Ridge and head to our back-up campground. We would have rather stayed as we loved the site, the campground was quiet, and we had a very nice, peaceful view of the West Point Lake, receding or not, lol.

But, not knowing if at any moment the host or ranger will come by and say, “Sorry, you have to leave by” whatever time, it just felt best to us to go ahead and use our back-up reservation. If we had let that reservation go in the hopes that Whitetail Ridge would stay open and then have it close, well, we’d have been scrambling to find another place.

My feeling was this; we can’t do anything about them NOT making a decision, but we CAN make a decision ourselves and do so for our own peace of mind.

So, we left later in the day to head to our back-up reservation at a state park and eliminate the worry of what USACE will or will not do.

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