Family Celebrations and Memorial Day 2024

Lake Greenwood State Park

May 24 - 27 2024; Site #51

Other possible sites:  53

This was our first visit to Lake Greenwood State Park.  We had heard mixed reviews and while we liked our site and being on the lake, which was super clean, the park itself has sites on top of each other and it was hard to maneuver with a rig as big as Geraldine!

We left on Friday after the girls got out of school early and arrived just in time for a rain storm to come through as we tried to get set up.  This was a “slight slope” of a site, but their definition of “slight” is far different from ours!  We had to hook and unhook 3 times and eventually manually level as much as we could after adding leveling blocks to the driver’s side and resorting to our “level” being slightly off with wheels on the camp side completely off the ground.  (Fun fact: over 90% of the campers we saw throughout the park were in a similar situation, some with no wheels on the ground at all!! Our next door neighbor had no wheels on the ground and he Jerry rigged his camper up with a rock and a chock!!!). We were completely down as far as we could go in the front and jacked up in the back, but it worked for the 3 days we were here.

The site was right on the lake, which was lovely and relaxing.  The only thing NOT lovely about it was the people who were throughout the park without lakeside sites who parked their boats right behind other sites and walked through our site to get to their boats.  If they had been pleasant and even friendly, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but they weren’t!  Pretty rude if you ask me.  That said, we were lakeside and we made the best of it!

The first day was our 16th anniversary.  It was a beautiful day and we hung out at the campsite, relaxing by the lake, playing in the lake, and just being together.  We hiked around the lake with the girls and enjoyed a beautiful campfire and gorgeous sunset.

The next day, Steve wanted to go to the Ninety Six Historical Site, which a friend of his had told him about.  So we headed out after breakfast.  It was fascinating - a really good history lesson about the Revolutionary War and the part the Carolina Territories and Carolina backcountry played in the war.  There are earthworks remaining of Star Fort - a revolutionary build of a fort that was held by British troops.  I would have liked to explore the many trails at the site, but it was HOT and HUMID and the girls weren’t really having the history lesson on vacation, so instead we just did the 1 mile walk around the earthworks and through the old town of Ninety Six (which the village size was literally about the size of our lot at our current house - 1/2 acre!). I was able to get a stamp in my National Park Passport book :)

After exploring, we headed back to the campground (and I got a SC Park Pass stamp) and hung out in the lake to cool off. We made a yummy dinner for Kaety’s upcoming 14th birthday and I used the convection oven to make her a Texas Sheet Cake (which Grace LOOOOVED!).

We spent the afternoon in the lake and loved just enjoying the water and hanging out (it was HOT)! We had a beautiful campfire and enjoyed (one more time) the beautiful sunsets this place has to offer…

One other thing I forgot to mention was the cicadas.  It is CICADA YEAR here in the southeast - three broods erupting at the same time.  I’ve been surprised we haven’t seen more… we have heard them a lot, but it hasn’t been as crazy as the 2001 mid-Atlantic brood I remember.  That said, LOTS of cicadas flying around and mostly dead on trails, around the campsite, and under foot.  They are beautiful…as long as they don’t fly into your face or hair!!

Our last day was Memorial Day AND Kaety’s 14th Birthday.  She, like a typical teenager, slept super late.  I finally woke her at 10:15 because we had to leave by 12!  She had a case of the slows, but was super happy to have a banana pancake, sausage, and cake breakfast ;)

It was a laid back trip, with lots of time just enjoying each other and the lake.  We probably won’t return to Lake Greenwood SP, but it was a nice time away nonetheless!