Mammoth Goes Birding…and stuff, Day 21

Monday April 28

We had an overnight low of 46 but it felt warmer than that when we went for the first-in-the-morning walk. I wore my hood up but no gloves. 

It was nice having my own private dog park.  There was a Coopers or Sharpie hunting the area.  And I heard a Baltimore Oriole. This is a very birdy KOA in the mornings. Having a creek running through it helps.

Then we got on the road. I-70 was still terribly rough; Ed dealt with it by going really slowly in the right lane.  As in, 55 mph in a 70 mph zone—I was worried he might get a ticket, but the minimum speed was 40. While I don’t blame him, it seemed a little too slow at times.

But we soon got to our destination—Lithia Springs COE campground.  We had full hookup, and it was a gorgeous place with trees in the early stages of leafing.  We were in site 68, I think.

 

Walking around, I noticed that the electric-only sites in another one of the camping loops were very nice—site 71 especially.  I’d definitely stay here again.  The picnic tables were aluminum; the sites were large, spread out and very neat.  We were on a long road that went straight through the middle of the campground from the guard station/gate to the picnic/swimming area.  There were lots of good sites down closer to the water, but ours was very nice, too. Just no view.

 

We got there early and there was no one at the gate, so we just went on in and occupied our site. At 3pm, when I walked back, the very nice lady at the station didn’t mention that we had checked in early and so I didn’t mention it either.  I actually had to walk back a second time—I’d forgotten my "old person’s pass” that gave me a camping discount.

Sadly, when Ed and I sat at the picnic table to take a breath of air and enjoy the outdoors, we noticed it had a couple of ticks on it. Waiting for our blood!

So Ed went inside and didn’t come out again until next day. Sad.  But Molly and I took a long walk, up the hill to the boat ramp, down to the picnic area, and in and out of some of the camping loops.  It was very windy—my ball cap  had to be manually anchored at times.  From the clouds it sure looked like rain was coming but the weather said no—not until the next afternoon.

Molly and I found one trail (not common in COE parks)--a short one that went out to a scenic point overlooking the lake. With a picnic bench facing west. No doubt they called it sunset point.   But it was not time for sunset yet, so we returned to the Magnus RV for supper.

The only birds were the usual, plus a palm warbler.  And I saw a wood thrush on the ground, and I heard a probably Scarlet Tanager in the trees. Merlin heard a Nashville Warbler, too. There was a sweet-smelling flower all over but I couldn’t figure out which one it was.

I’d definitely come back here again, but need to make a note that it’s pretty far off the interstate, so we’d want to be sure to stay a couple of nights.

REVIEW: Lithia Springs COE Campground

Exceptionally nice COE campground on a lovely lake

We had a back-in site 68 with full hookups, which is unusual for a COE park. They had a lot of nice electric-only sites, too, in particular on a loop that’s up on a hill with a lake view and a whole lot of space around the sites. And some more FHU sites down on the lake by the day use area—they were a little more crowded but had great views.

The lady at the gate was very nice. Check-in time on recreation.gov was 5pm, but the sign on their gate indicated that they opened at 3pm and the lady had no issues with us checking in early.  Obviously we wouldn’t have asked if our site hadn’t been free.  At the time of year (April) the campground wasn’t very crowded at all, but I can imagine it gets pretty busy in summer.

The boat ramp and fish cleaning station was way away from the camp sites, so there was no noise or traffic from fishing boats. It would be a great place to take the boat but probably not a good place to tie it up. I think I saw a warning about wave action making this inadvisable; plus, it was hard to get to the water from most of the campsites.

There was a little playground near the gate.

It was quiet other than a brief visit from a group of young folk at the swimming beach.  And there was a surprising lack of trash around—it was one of the cleanest COE lakes I’ve ever seen.