Campground

Today was another office day, but as promised, I am getting around to a full park tour.  I had to swing by the campground this morning to drop off some fliers that I made about our Wi-Fi trial program.  While I was there, I snapped a few photos to share.  There are 60 sites in two loops in the main, family campground.  The loops look like two kidneys on the lower left of the park map.  Each loop has a restroom and 30 sites.  Each site has electric, a picnic table, and a fire ring.  The sites can accommodate tent campers or RV campers.



The campsites vary slightly in the amount of vegetation around them or the proximity to the restroom, but they are all very similar.  The whole campground is located within a beautiful Sandhill area.  There are sparse pines and dense grass everywhere.  I am sure that campers wake up to deer filled views often.


There is currently, a central dump station near the entrance of the campground, however we won't need it much longer.  Starting very shortly and continuing for up to two years, construction will begin in the park to make some upgrades.  The areas of the park which are currently utilizing septic tanks will be switched over to join with the city sewer.  This project will add sewer hookups to each camping site, eliminating the need for the dump station.  The upgrade will also lessen our impact on groundwater and reduce maintenance needs in the park.  We will no longer need the lift stations and treatment facility.  The construction will disrupt the campground significantly.  We will not be taking camping reservations anymore starting in June.  We will try to keep the campground open and do construction in stages to minimize disruptions, but we will have to see what happens.
The rest of my day was spent in the office.  I had just a few things to work on, some documents to read, reports to sign, and I helped a ranger with his time sheet because the program that we use was being difficult.  My office work was made a little brighter because one of my coworkers added a rose to each person's desk.  It was opening very slowly throughout the day and just got prettier and prettier.


In the afternoon, I left a little early.  I worked so many long days last week and over the weekend, so I decided to reward myself with an early start to my weekend off.  I went out and ran some errands and made it back in time to meet some of the other ladies from the office at a local restaurant for 'girl's night.'  It was a lot of fun.

Thought of the Day #76
I did a full grocery shopping trip today for the first time since the move.  What a joy!  Who knew that grocery shopping could be so great?!  When I lived at Troy, I went to Lake City to shop for groceries.  It was about a 45 minute drive to get there and then I always spent an hour or two there.  It was such an ordeal that I only went once every two weeks or even once a month.  Once the shopping was done, I had to load up the car.  I brought insulated cooler bags with me to keep the perishables cold for the trip home.  While I loaded the car, I also had to strategically select items that needed to go in the cooler bags.  Space was limited so I had to be choosy.  I then made the 45 minute drive home and was usually worn out by the time I had to unload and put away a month's worth of groceries.  So today, I drove past the Publix that is 1.5 miles from my home.  I don't care for the layout of that store and I live close enough to several different Publix locations to be picky.  I drove about another 5 miles to a nicer Publix and leisurely shopped for only a week's worth of groceries.  I was able to easily load the groceries onto the checkout belt and the whole load fit comfortably on the belt.  On the way home, I realized that I forgot to buy potatoes... and it didn't matter because there is a grocery store 1.5 miles from my home.  I returned home and put away all of the groceries.  When I looked at the clock, I realized that the whole ordeal took less than 2 hours.  What an improvement!!