Lake Richard B. Russell

Lake Richard B. Russell State Park

Comer, GA

June 12, 2010

This was a spur of the moment trip.. we were actually on the way to Walmart to get some aluminum foil and a towel for Kim when we saw a sign for this state park. We were in fact camping at nearby Watson Mill Bridge State Park!

Well This trip was Kim, Megan, Scott, Dennis, and I (Dennis took the picture!). It must have been a bad omen from the start with this bee.. well this bee was we thought watching us. It would literally buzz in the same place pointing in out direction as if to say this is my spot. It finally went away when an even larger bee showed up!

We all went into the visitors lodge to get maps and patches. Neither of which was provided by the park! They had been sold out of patches and had no intention of purchasing new ones. We later found out at Watson Mill Bridge that due to funding, parks may actually be getting corporate sponsors, potentially changing some names!

Well we were all very disappointed in not having the patches... thinking about ordering custom ones on ebay or the like.

Anyway, we found a 2 mile trail near the actual lake that looked to be promising. The park itself was humongous containing not only the lake but a golf course and disc golf. We later found it was named after GA's youngest governor who came to office at the age of 33!

The Blackwell Bridge Trail started out beautifully with a trail of recycled tire material laid down by the local detention center. It was really nice to be able to walk on supportive ground. On top of that they had several labels showing various types of trees which was pretty nice as well. Roughly .3 miles in, this trail stopped. It felt like we were going backwoods creating our own trail. The trail was poorly maintained with areas that you could barely tell where the path was. The shrubs were overgrown onto the trail as well. The trail markers were also barely visible until the last stretch of the trail.

We were not impressed with the park at all and unless they purchase some patches, it will be one I will not return to!

I will say, this park is probably more for older visitors. Very quiet place for a Saturday in the summer, even with the boats. The campsites were also pretty small and close together. It seemed to make Watson Mill even more like heaven for us!

Watson Mill Bridge

Watson Mill Bridge State Park

June 11 - 13, 2010

I was hesitant at first when I reserved a campsite for this park. Scott and I had originally talked about going to Victoria Bryant because it was off of I-85 and fairly close to home. I saw Watson Mill Bridge was maybe 25 minutes from there and ended up booking a site from Friday night to Sunday. The hesitation came from the website showing it was a park focusing on equestrian activity, which is true but it turned out to be so much more. Half the park is for horse trails and horse camping, but the other half.. wow.

Watson Mill Bridge State Park turned out to be beautiful and now I can say it can be ranked in the top of my favorite parks! They had several shorter trails full of rich diversity in plants and sites. One trail led to an old steel bridge, another to a an old power mill from the late 1800's! There were limited pines, several hard woods meaning the forest was a little older than regions we were used to closer to Atlanta that have continuously been cleared away for construction.

Scott, Megan, Kim, and I borrowed my parents pop up camper for the weekend. There were maybe 20 tent/RV sites and 3 pioneer sites. Everything was well maintained and everyone was very friendly. There were several small kids riding bikes, many dogs and hikers, oh and the camp host. He had been there since April and had the most adorable puppy, a poodle/shitsu mix!

Friday was spent setting up, relaxing, then eating some fabulous pizza. Yes pizza! Scott used his dad's dutch oven and made some fabulous homemade mini pizzas using biscuit dough. Scott proved to be an amazing chef and surprised us again on Saturday night!

Friday we actually took a short trip to Walmart to get some last minute food for the weekend. We decided to find a local Walmart close to the park (almost 15 miles away!). Ont the way we found some fascinating findings! First there was this sign (well we found several more) but this sign was very unique. It was a stop sign like no other... there was a street sign stacked up on top literally like lego pieces. I thought it was the funniest thing!

We also some this yard of old cars. The cool part was the way the cars were decorated... Think Disney's Cars! We pulled over and took pics with Lightning McQueen, Mater, Doc Hudson, the Sheriff and a few others. That was pretty neat :)

Check out the pics at the here: http://gastateparkchallenge.shutterfly.com

Saturday was a long day with several plans incorporated. We actually left the park to visit Richard B. Russell State Park for a hike before lunch. We then did two shorter hikes in the afternoon along with splashing around the water near the bridge. The end of the day was met with an amazing dinner/desert combo. I roasted hot dogs in the fire and ate them covered in baked beans... mmmm. Then Scott made this fantastic Apple Cobbler with both real apple and apple filling that just melted in your mouth! We were stuffed by the end of the night and still had more to spare. We took an extra cup to the campground host and random couple we saw. Fortunately, we made a great choice when we chose the couple.. they ended up being part of a dutch oven camping organization and were impressed with the cake. They told us of a group, the Alabama Dutch Oven Society (www.alabamadog.com) that gathers a couple of times a year to just cook with only the dutch ovens. We will definitely be looking into it! They go to various state parks both in AL and GA and they mentioned roughly 30+ members go.

The key feature of the park was definitely the bridge from 1885 used in the local industries to cross the river. A damn was built right under creating a large space for playing in the water. We spent several hours near the maybe 10 foot water fall and walking across the bridge. The was definitely a moment of awe standing in the bridge thinking how they could have engineered such a bridge. Today we have everything made from steel, but the bridge even had its original wood nails and still carries several cars each day (including campers)!

Regardless, we had an amazing weekend and I know I will definitely be returning!