Gen. Coffee and Ft. Yargo, Georgia
I’m happy to report our trip has so far been so uneventful that LeeAnn had to prod me to write this.
Last week we visited General Coffee State Park and Ft. Yargo State Park, both in Georgia, on our way to Rock Island State Park in Tennessee. Both parks were really nice in different ways.
General Coffee is a real nice park. It isn’t too far from a town, but it’s far enough that highway noise isn’t a problem. There is a train that passes by occasionally, but it’s not very loud. The sites are large with good separation between them. It rained steadily both afternoons, but the site drained well, so it wasn’t a disaster. We spent a significant amount of time under our awning during a nice soaking rain.
We particularly like the Heritage Farm. It’s essentially some 19th century farm buildings situated on a small lake (or maybe a large pond). There’s an interpretive walk around the water and farm animals in large pens. We saw goats (hard to miss, they were right on the edge of the trail), a horse, and chickens. However, the most interactive of all the animals were the ducks around the pond. We marveled at the variety pack of ducks: at least three different kinds and hanging out together like one big flock.
On our way back from a walk around the trail, one must have been upset we didn’t feed them. A large white male stood in the middle of a small bridge and would not let us pass. I let Barnie get about ten feet from him thinking that would make him move. The duck simply ruffled out its feathers. We didn’t want to hurt the duck, so we were at an impasse until a ranger came by and shoed it away. I swear the duck turned around and gave us a final angry quack as it went into the water.
Guard duck!
Our trip from GCSP to Ft. Yargo was so uneventful I can’t recall a single significant event. Things changed when we arrived: Someone was in our campsite. Checkout was noon, and it was nearly four when we got there. It took a little while, but park staff straightened it out. We’re still not entirely sure what happened. We did see the campers a few sights down later that day, so maybe they were in the wrong spot. The delay wasn’t a big deal, though, we just walked a trail and drove around until the space was empty.
FYSP is a large park with a nice paved bike trail and what looked like a nice off-road bike trail. They don’t allow riding when the trail is wet, so we didn’t see anyone using it while we were there.
It rained much of the time we were there. Our site had okay drainage. Some held water for a bit after the rains, and others looked like nothing happened. The sites are hardpacked gravel, so even the ones that held water longer were probably okay once the water went down.
We didn’t do much at Yargo, and we enjoyed it. We did go to a Panda Express for lunch; it was quite good.