Bee on a Hairy Sunflower.

Eastbank Campground in Bainbridge, Georgia – October 23, 2024

On Wednesday, October 23rd, we left Whitetail Ridge Campground and drove 3 1/2 hours to Eastbank Campground in Bainbridge, Georgia. This is another United States Army Corps of Engineers (COE) campground, located on Lake Seminole just north of the Florida state line. Without realizing it, Cindy had booked the same site we had when we stayed here last year.

Cranky Campground Lady

We like staying at COE campgrounds and almost without exception the staff are always friendly and courteous. The check-in woman at this campground was the exception.

Cindy went in with my “America The Beautiful” pass which we always use to get 50% off of our site fee. We always use it when booking, but sometimes they like to see it at check-in, so Cindy made sure to take it in with her. The woman insisted on also seeing my drivers license. Cindy came back to the truck to get that. No one has ever asked for it, but it’s definitely not a problem. We could see that it’s a way to keep the pass alone (which does not have a photo) from being used by someone else.

However, then the woman complained that my pass was not signed and anyone could use it. Cindy rightly pointed out that would not be possible since the woman also had my drivers license, under the same name with photo and signature, to match the pass. The woman grumped about that, but couldn’t really argue effectively to the contrary.

Cindy then casually mentioned that this was the first time she had been asked for my drivers license at check-in (even when we we checked in here at Eastbank last year) and asked if this was a new requirement going forward. So she would know in the future to bring my license in along with the pass.

Man, Cindy said the woman went off! Yelling that it’s always been required and she wished she knew the names of everyone who ever let Cindy check-in without a drivers license so she could report them for not following procedure. Right, like we kept the names of every person who checked us in at COE’s across the country just so this woman could report them, lol!

Some people…

Smoke From A Distant Fire

Anyway, that unpleasantness was negated by the beautiful sunset we had that evening. It was just gorgeous and was even enhanced a bit by smoke from a fire to the east of us drifting high across Lake Seminole. You can see what it looked like in the photos.

It was a completely different view the next morning. We awakened to the lake being almost invisible and the campground covered and smothered in smoke from what we assume was the same fire. We couldn’t see the opposite shoreline because the smoke was so thick and the RV in the site next to us was even blurred through the haziness of the smoke in the campground.

We never found out what the cause of the fire was, but were glad we only had one night there. Both because of the smoke and the super-pleasant check-in woman.

Departing there at noon on Thursday we drove 190 miles south to a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Gainesville for another one-night stay. Heading east on I-10 and south on I-75 we drove through a 50-mile swath of damage caused by Hurricane Milton a coupe of weeks earlier. There were trees down in all directions (no doubt from tornadoes rather than straight-line winds) billboards ripped apart, metal road signs bent and ripped in pieces right off their poles, and lots of workers cleaning up.

We enjoyed a nice dinner at Cracker Barrel that night and a delicious breakfast the next morning before leaving for our next stop; Orlando.

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