Arrived in South Mills, North Carolina

We left Aiken, South Carolina at about 9 a.m. this morning and got right on the road.  The kids were in the truck waiting about 20 minutes before we pulled out, anxious and ready to go home to see their mom and dad.

Already got the phones and tables working even before we left!

We only fueled up one time on this drive and spend 20 minutes.  They rest of the day was straight driving.  We were supposed to arrived about 5 p.m. and we got there at 4:48 p.m..  It was only 7 hours on the road today but we reached our destination safe and sound.

The street where our daughter, Lisa, lives in South Mills, North Carolina is quite narrow and right off the street are steep grassy valleys for water containment for extreme rain.  When I tried to back up the RV in their long, wide driveway, due to the valleys of grass, when I was making the turn is off balanced the RV and the tool box in the back of the truck and I, unknowingly, ripped up the edge of the fiberglass on the RV and scraped up the top of the tool box.  I'm very upset and quite frustrated to say the least!  I was getting no directions from anyone, and well, now we have a big repair we have to make to the coach.  I'm disgusted.  We've got to get some duct tape on it before water gets inside.

NOT A HAPPY CAMPER!

Tore this up, too but at least you can't tell as much!

We decided it would be best to find an RV park or campground close by instead of dealing with this any more.  So, Scott got a place at North River Campground in Shawboro, North Carolina aka Shiloh, North Carolina, 30 miles southeast of the kids tucked up near the coast.

The Office

Inside the Office

The Store in the office.

Welcome!

Sitting area outside the office in the sun porch.

I was in a foul mood by this time and getting out to Shawboro (aka Shiloh) was down some small streets. The road the campground on was only half a lane for 1.5 miles so I started getting quite concerned.  At the end of the street we arrived.  We were a bit confused on how to access the campground and where to park so I just stayed on the street while Scott went into the office. He came out 15 minutes later a bit frustrated as they would NOT honor our Passport America on the weekends - only for Monday night's stay! He tried to get the Good Sam discount for tonight and tomorrow and Passport America for Monday but they said that was double dipping and wouldn't do accept it.  Sounds fishy to me and not a good way to start our weekend!  

On then the more positive side, they do give you an entire packet of thing when you check-in.  On the outside of the envelope is the map of the park and on the inside is a paper with the park pizza menu, a welcome and information letter and a full-size large flip calendar for 2017.

Packet

Map of the facility
We are the bottom right red upper site (50 amp).

The rate is $50 per night for the first two nights (we had to pay $5 more for a pull-thru) and the third night is $27.50 with Passport America.  Considering this campground is hardly filled, I don't get what the fuss was all about except that they were being greedy.  That started making my review less than desirable. Maybe Scott should have told them that I'm reviewing and blogging campgrounds and maybe they might sing a different tune.

So, when you enter the campground we entered through the white key pad security gate on the right.  Once pass this you are actually in a camper's paradise.  The campground itself is stunning with a 5 acre lake in the center of the complex with super wide, deep and VERY grassy, treed sites with a concrete pad, gravel pad, picnic tables, wine barrel potted flowers at your site.  The campground is in a clearing with woods surrounding the entire area.  

We were assigned site #14 - a site right on the corner of the campground.

You can see the lake in the distance.

To the left of us is a nice wooded picnic area.  To our right is the lake.

Amenities Include:

• Back in or Pull thru sites ($5 more for pull thru)
• Tent Camping
• 6 Motel Rooms
• 7 Small Cabins
• 16 Apartments
• Bath House
• Laundry
• 30/50 amp sites
• Wireless Internet (didn't reach out at our area)
• Cable TV
• Picnic Tables
• Fire Rings and Wood/Ice
• Propane station
• Swimming Pool
• 5 acre stocked lake
• Boat Dock
• Boat Access to River
• Paddle boats
• 3 Screened pavilions with Kitchen
• Playground
• Office
• Pizza & Sandwich shop on site
• Game room
• Miniature golf
• Horse shoes
• Dog Run
• RV Storage
• Dump Station
• Convenience Store

So, there's actually quite a lot of fun things to do here.  It's also a stunningly beautiful campground - lots of open space, immaculately groomed and just a comfortable place to be.

Here are just a few photos.

View of the lake from our site.

Looking west on the map toward the covered pavillion.

Looking north from our spot on the map

Bath House and Laundry

Showers - Nothing to write home about

2 Showers and 1 toilet

Sink area

Laundry machines are about 15 years out of date

The Motel portion of the park

Grill area for the motel apartments

Tent area

Children's Playground

The pool - small but does the job.

Pool area (hot tub on the left)

Boat dock for boating and fishing

The Gathering Room

Pee Wee Golf

Cottages

Cute Cut-outs

8/13/17 Note: After being here 3 days, I'd give this park a 8 rating.  The facility is nice, but the bathrooms and laundry need some serious updating, although they are very clean.  Wi-Fi and Internet is terrible out where we are and a poor signal (and we are close to the main office), so unless you have a booster, you may be in trouble if you need to connect.  If they would fix the bathrooms, laundry room and up their Internet booster, I'd change this to a 9 or 10.

Soon, Lisa and the family came and brought Chinese food for dinner and stayed and chatted for awhile before the mosquitoes ran everyone off. We had the lights on outside the RV and must have had at least 1,000 mosquitoes hanging around.  We ended up killing about 50 inside the coach tonight. And, I'm allergic, too! Yikes!

Enjoying a Chinese dinner at camp.

When Lisa's family arrived she said we could have pulled straight into their neighbors yard, through their backyard and into their backyard and then straight onto their driveway.  I wish I would have known that earlier.  It would have saved me 30 minutes of driving time, $150 and a great deal of frustration! Oh well.  This will be a nice respite from our weary days on the road.

They also brought with them some doTerra that I had ordered, mail, and the new TN king mattress and pillows that we ordered in Cortez.  I sure hope the mattress is more comfortable.  It sure takes up a LOT of room in the bedroom.  I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.

After dinner, the kids grabbed all their items from the trip - souvenirs, junior ranger stuff, clothes and headed home.  We'll see them tomorrow.