Boiled Peanuts Adventure

FINALLY I have taken the time to write up one of many promised camping adventures! I hope you enjoy and in someway this will benefit you on one of your own camping adventures, even if it’s just avoiding an area that I mention… (sorry for any typos!)

Recently someone asked me about Boiled Peanuts… they wanted to know how they tasted, and how they were cooked. This made me think of all the wonderful boiled peanuts that I have had in my many trips to the North Georgia Mountains. I will probably be writing about Georgia quite a bit, as I have traveled there on SO many occasions… I have been to most of the state parks if not all in the North Georgia area. Traveling there from where we live was always a nice quick getaway, in summer, fall or winter. In the mountains every season is breathtaking! But that mention of peanuts took me back to all of our adventures and good times camping up there and visiting that small boiled peanut stand across from the Old Sautee store near Helen, GA (they sell the BEST peanuts!) I’m always disappointed when they are closed on a visit… if you are ever in the area buy a bag, you will enjoy them!

Right now though, I am thinking about a camping trip that I took with my Dad that led us to Tennessee and ended in the Helen, GA area. At that particular time we were camping in a 1989 22’ ft Coachmen Catalina. That RV was SMALL! The kitchen was very tiny; there were three beds, the couch, dinette and a loft bed above the van area. You are going to hear A LOT about that camper, the main reason it was purchased was because I loved the colors, it was not the usual chocolate brown interior and exterior of the 80’s, but what a pile of junk!! Surprising as it sounds, we kept it for several years! Another time I will tell you all about the HUGE ball of fires from the muffler and the pedal that used to fall off while driving!! I’m going to dig out a photo for posting, wait till you see it.

Back to this adventure! Bright, and not so early we set out on the road, making our first stop at the tag office to renew our tags before heading for Georgia. Passengers on this adventure were my dad, me and our camping pet a Siberian Husky who we bought while camping one year (more about her to come! Wait till you see photos, you are going to love her!)

We are on our way! After leaving Florida and listening to hours of “oldies” rock ‘n’ roll, we discussed heading up to Tennessee to visit some friends that moved a few years back to the Knoxville area. Initially our first destination was supposed to be North Georgia –Unicoi State Park. We stopped at a Wal-Mart and made a phone call (we were not into the cell phone craze like everyone else just then) to our friends and they gave us directions to their house, and were happy to hear that we were coming to visit… so we set back out on I-75, with a mission to make Rogersville, TN before nightfall. By the way, this was winter time and snow was forecasted.

Well, we didn’t make such good time that day… due to rain storms and road work; we did not enter Tennessee until early evening. We hit Knoxville around 7:00 p.m. that night and looked wearily for the Rogersville exit… what we didn’t know was that there were two zoo exits and we were supposed to take the second not the first, which in the spirit of the Griswold’s we took the first and ended up in downtown Knoxville! This is where I have to say that I have never seen streets SO SKINNY! As I previously noted we had a small RV, but we could not stay on the skinny roads through the city, I believe that we actually rode on the sidewalk for a good part of our city drive. Who had that bright idea? Well, someone had that bright idea of going to the local Krispy Kreme doughnut shop to ask for directions to Rogersville. I fearlessly exited the RV and headed inside, where I was greeted by two lovely enthused employees who laughed at me hysterically when I simply asked “How do I get to Rogersville?” simualtelosuly they replied “We ain’t never heard of Rogersville” HA HA… I returned to the RV with the disappointing news that Rogersville does not exist according to Krispy Kreme workers. So we headed back onto the tiny roads trying to find our way out of the city, hoping to get back onto the interstate to turn around and find a different exit, this just was not to be. Instead we headed down a HUGE incline that looked like we were diving into a large pit, instead with a swift turn of the wheel we ended up in front of the Knoxville police department, where a nice police officer was walking across the street, we stopped the RV rolled down the window, motioned him over and tiredly I said the famous words “We’re Lost!” opening our map he showed us how to leave Knoxville and get onto the right road to Rogersville (we’re not crazy it did exist!) even Smokey our husky was up front listening to the directions. Thanks to the nice officer we were back again heading down the small streets and exiting the city of Knoxville for the right road to the illusive Rogersville.

Now it would have been so simple to just make a turn here and there and be there… but it doesn’t happen that way. Instead we ended up on a four lane desolate road, it was now after 10:00 p.m. the sleet was coming down steadily and we drove and we drove and we drove… and there was always the occasional annoying “Daddy, I don’t think Rogersville exists!” and the reply “It better, because I’m TIRED!” but, what was is that? A gas station, the first in many miles!! We pulled in and I sent my dad in to the store to ask the famous question “Where is Rogersville?” GOOD news we passed the road but it was just a quick turn around back about a mile… yay! We were a little too tired to cheer, the clock now striking midnight. But I am happy to report we made it! We camped at our friends place for about two nights, enjoyed the snow falling and headed out back to our original destination Unicoi State Park in North Georgia.

I can still remember the Cracker Barrel that we stopped at on our way out of Tennessee (you are going to hear a lot about this chain of restaurants, as it’s my goal to eat at every one in the whole U.S.A. – HONESTLY! I have a map and am making marks, I should post my progress on that) Anyhow, we had to sit in the middle of the restaurant at those two seat tables… recently I have seen some that now have put partitions between these tables –EXCELLENT IDEA- but this one was right next to another two seat table. We were OK, but then a couple came and sat down… we were so close to them we could hear every word they said, and we kept hitting each other, when we tried to eat. I never ate SO fast and left. After that experience my Dad always requests that we sit at a four person table, even if we have to wait a little longer.

Back in Georgia, where we are familiar with most areas and roads, we headed down a very high, very long mountainous road, which actually was beautiful with all the ice in the trees, I’m happy that I took video, while I was trying to not think about the height of the road and all the slippery ice just waiting for the cars to slide over. But we did finally make Unicoi State Park… this is actually one of my favorite camping destinations, but this year it wasn’t so great as the state had leased the park out and it was not being ran by the normal rangers and staff, it has since gone back to being state owned. We pulled up to the office, checked in for a campsite and attempted to head out to the campsite when “KA BOOM and SSSSSSSS” noises took place from the back left tire… someone had left something very sharp beside the grass curbed turnaround!!!! By the time we got to the campsite the tire was flat. This is also a good time to mention that we were the only ones camping in the whole campground, except for a couple camping two sites from us. We hooked everything up and went to sleep for the night. The next morning we walked down to the pavilion (which now is the location of a camp/country store) to call our road help line to send someone to fix the tire. We spent the rest of the day at the campground and that evening someone arrived and changed the flat tire with the spare tire, which was just that a dried up old spare tire. On this thing I could hardly call a tire we were able to drive into Helen and buy some groceries and eat dinner.

NOW, this really is my favorite part of the story… at our campsite when departing for the short two hour trip around Helen, we left Smokey’s run tied to a tree, our spare tire cover that said “COACHMEN” on it, stool steps and a few other small items around the campsite. When we returned everything but Smokey’s run was gone! This was amazing to me… in all my years of camping I have always felt so safe, and have always left camp stuff at the site, this put an end to that. Around the campfire that night Dad and I tried to figure out who would have come along and taken these items… we were quite suspicious of the man and woman a few sites down, they had been very friendly when saying “Hello” while walking their dogs, but after the stolen items I kept a watch on them, and the next morning they packed up and left. We decided that it would have been too obvious (since they had dogs) to steal Smokey’s run, so they took everything else and left that. Well, campers it was them or the wanna be ranger and his imaginary friend Joe. So after another day of camping, camp food, fires and peaceful walking, and my first shower in three days… we decided it was time to head home… but first we stopped at the office to complain about the sharp object in the turnaround and the stolen items from our campsite… this is when we met Joe –at least we think we did. After mentioning the stolen items, the lady at the office called the park ranger up, (maybe the only ranger in the whole park at that time!) he entered the office surprisingly by himself. He commented that he patrolled the area with Joe, and they never saw anything being taken. (I think they did come around one time during the day and once at night) He then proceeded to ask Joe if he saw anything on the campsite while collecting garbage… well, Joe never answered. So we simply said that a better watch needs to be maintained on the campsites and got out of there! By the way if anyone reading this should now be the owner of our tire cover and steps, I hope they are bringing lots of joy to your camping experience… and campers lock those campers and tents!

Of course this isn’t the end; there is still one more adventure about to happen. On our way down to Atlanta to catch I-75, we realized the imitation of a tire would not last to Florida. So we stopped in Gainesville, GA asked around and found a tire shop… we safely made it to the shop without the dried up tire exploding. Our RV was lifted up and a new tire was put on and we made our way back down the road… it was nice this one time to see the “Welcome to Florida” sign that evening.


So maybe it wasn’t the BEST adventure I have had, or the funniest, and come to think of it I never got any boiled peanuts on that trip… just a few stops at Cracker Barrel and some German food.

What food might trigger a special camping memory for you?

Until next time, let’s go camping!