Snowbird Season Three Update from our last stop in Georgia

Welcome back to our RV travel adventure blog! We are nearing the end of our Snowbird Season Three, and we’ve been traveling across Georgia for the past few weeks and are now back on the East Coast. We’ll be starting our way north in just a few short weeks. I hope it’s warming up back home, because we’ve been spoiled by the lovely temps we’ve had in recent weeks. Our daytime temps are approaching 80, while evenings have been cool and comfortable.

For those following our map updates, here’s the latest edition:

We just arrived at Fort McAllister State Park in Richmond Hill, GA. From here, we’ll be heading north just a bit to visit with our grandson, Nathan, and his lovely partner Cheyenne. Our daughter, Faye, will be flying in from Phoenix to help us all celebrate Nathan’s 21st birthday! I can’t believe he’s 21 already! He’s such a wonderful young man and Gram and Pops could not be more proud of him. I look forward to sharing pics of our visit in our next update.

Since our last post, we camped at another beautiful Georgia State Park - Laura S. Walker - where we had a wonderful time. We befriended a couple new to the RV lifestyle, and I was able to share my sourdough starter and a kombucha scoby with them. As they enjoy their RV adventures, I hope they’ll pass starter and scoby along to other campers they encounter as well!

For me, a highlight of our stay at Laura Walker (and for all of Snowbird Season Three, honestly) was meeting a fellow camper / potter. Char and I christened my new RV-sized wheel with an impromptu throwing and trimming lesson. It felt so good to be at the wheel again, not to mention sharing my love of clay with another potter and the occasional curious camper who happened along.

My little Quark wheel proved to be the ideal throwing tool for our travels. Since I can’t fire work on the road and it’s really not ideal to transport thrown forms given our storage capacity, and considering we’re traveling a distance over some bumpy terrain - I envisioned using this little wheel on the road to experiment with new ideas before taking them home to the studio for production. I never dreamed I’d meet a fellow potter and be able to offer a lesson. What a treat! If you’re reading this, Char, thank you again for spending such a big part of the day with me playing in mud - it’s my happy place, and I had such a blast!

We also enjoyed a couple of campfires with Char and her husband, Tony, as well as their camping buddies Mary and Joe. It turns out that Mary and Joe live close to Nathan, so we may get a chance to see them again in the coming weeks. (Small world, right?)

Laura Walker State Park offered some gorgeous scenery. The campground itself is nestled under tall pines with huge pine cones littering the ground. We were glad we had the chance to walk around the lake on our first day of exploring, because a prescribed burn took place here a few days into our visit so these paths were inaccessible for a couple of days.

The view of the day use facilities adjacent to the campground from across the lake.

There was another section of beautiful walking paths we discovered in another area, and we had fun exploring them and geocaching while the burned sections smoldered for several days. Pine needles blanketed the ground, tall trees swayed in the breeze, saw palmetto rustled as we walked past, and I wore a great big smile on each and every walk. These are my favorite types of trails! I think a walk in the woods is like balm to the soul, even a soul at peace. Of course, I also feel this way about sitting on the beach, greeting the sun rise or bidding it farewell for the day, and watching the clouds drift by overhead from my hammock. What can I say? It’s easy to be easily pleased when you get to live this close to nature!

While at Laura Walker State Park, we got to try out their dog park, which had a section for large dogs and a section for small dogs, situated next to one another and separated by a fence. We put Oakley in the large section without her muzzle and Bandit in the small dog section. Our dogs were able to interact outside, off-leash, and did a little running back and forth along the fence with each other. I got teary eyed, remembering the days when they used to play constantly all day, chasing one another, playing tag, and wrestling both inside and outside. When we get home, Steve plans to section off our back yard in a way that replicates this layout so both dogs can be off leash together in the yard without Oakley having to wear her muzzle. We’re hoping that it leads to a more harmonious relationship between the two of them. Cross your fingers for us all!

Oakley has been doing really well on her walks; she’s still reactive to many other dogs who approach her, but is getting better about being re-directed when said dog doesn’t interact with her. She has only redirected her anxiety at Bandit twice on this trip: once when he was excited about a squirrel and once when another dog made her nervous. Fortunately, we’ve had only one encounter with a dog off-leash (and not under voice control) who approached her that escalated, but the muzzle saved the day in that situation, too! Overall, we’re pleased that she’s either making progress on the reactivity front or becoming more ambivalent with age - either way, we’ll take it!

We wandered down by the lake at Laura Walker on the campground side to watch the sunset on several evenings, too! And I got a chance to assemble my first proof of concept Poppy Bowl from one of the cane designs I created earlier on our trip. I constructed this blend in colored paper clay, allowing me to roll the individual petals super thin and form the petals over a wheel-thrown bowl form that I made and bisque-fired before leaving home.

This test bowl came out so well that I’m attempting to save it and transport it home with me, despite it’s delicate, raw clay state. It’s survived thus far, in a small bucket with plenty of bubble wrap surrounding it. This is the California Poppy; it will be stronger tones of yellow and orange once fired. I made another cane design for the Red Chieftan Poppy. The most time consuming parts for both designs - mixing and testing the colors, making the paper clay, blending the colors and building the canes - are done. And the process for constructing the poppy bowls won’t change regardless of the cane design, so I’ve decided not to tempt fate  by trying to transport two bowls home safely with me. There will be plenty of time for me to make these bowls once I get home, and I should have limited quantities of both designs ready for the Chester County Studio Tour (May 17 and May 18 for those local to me who might want to attend and see these finished bowls in person).

From Laura Walker, we headed northeast just a bit to Jack Hill State Park, which suffered quite a bit of damage from Hurricane Helene. While the staff and volunteers there are doing an amazing job of recovering from the disaster, evidence of the storm could be seen in downed trees throughout the park, changes in the lake fauna, and even in the campsites themselves. The hiking trail was closed, still awaiting crews to come clear the debris before they can re-open it. Instead, we walked the dogs down by the golf course several times a day, and they seemed content enough to walk on macadam once again.

We walked around the lovely little lake where there were swinging benches from which we could watch the sun set beyond the lake. Some nights, the lake was as still as glass.

Despite the storm damage, we had an amazing campsite with a fabulous view that we were able to call home for twelve blissfully quiet days. Our campsite was situated back to back with one other site, but our front yard view was woods as far as we could see. I saw an online review of the campground with pictures of our site before the hurricane, and there’s a marked difference.

With the exception of the one site behind us, our campsite was situated away from the rest of the small campground, and I really enjoyed the quiet for our stay there. Campgrounds tend to be relatively quiet (at least during the week), but there’s still a lot of people walking past your site throughout the day, rigs pulling in and out, and fellow campers and hosts to chat with about the weather, their travel plans, their favorite campgrounds, etc. I found the respite from all of that to be energizing and refreshing.

Our site was huge and the weather cooperated, so I set my studio tent up again and got to work, this time creating blends and canes for lotus flower bowls and lily pads. Over four days, I experimented to find the perfect purple (an elusive color in ceramics), tested my colors, mixed the paper clay and built the cane designs for a purple and white lotus flower and the lily pad it will sit on.

Finally, it was time to construct another proof of concept bowl, which yielded a certainty that constructing the delicate petals of the lotus flower outside on a hot, breezy day was less than ideal. The thin, delicate petals dried before I could tweak them into the organic form I envision. When I get home and have more control over the humidity and temperature in my work environment, I will attempt to create a bowl that has a bit more movement to it. I know I’ll be pleased with the colors in this petal when fired, and I hope that I’ll be able to perfect the process of constructing them so these, too, will be ready for a debut on the Chester County Studio Tour!

Our last stop in Georgia on Snowbird Season Three has arrived! This week, we’ll be parking our home/studio on wheels Fort McAllister, and I already think I’m in love with this place! On the drive in, Spanish moss draped from the trees and I took in a view of salt marshes extending as far as I could see, herons fishing and hawks flying overhead, and some of the largest saw palmettos I’ve ever seen. The photo below is the interior road of the campground where our campsite is located. It’s so beautiful, right?

Shortly after setting up our campsite, a family of dear cross the campground road directly in front of our RV.

As we explore this park, I’ll take more photos to share with you in our next blog post. Until then, thank you so much for sharing our journey with us! It’s great to have you along for the ride!

Be well,

Steve & Susan