Wauchula, FL to Charleston, SC
St. George (Charleston), SC - Events of Thursday, May 4 to Friday, May 5, 2017
Because we stayed in Florida longer, we decided we would skip our usual stop in Lower Alabama on our way north and just head straight to Ohio. For a trip of this length (over 1,100 miles) we would normally divide it up into 5 travel days. However, even though it meant we would have to drive a little longer than we usually do on some of the legs, we decided to make the trip in 4 days because the timing for a 4-day trip as well as the location of potential stopping points just seemed to work better.
Our scheduled stop for the first night was at Stage Coach RV Park in St. Augustine. The route north from our new winter location in Wauchula would normally take us through Orlando, but we decided at the last minute to take a route recommended to us by one of the other co-op members in order to avoid potential Orlando traffic.
The alternate route heads east from Wauchula and picks up I-95 farther south at Vero Beach instead of angling northeast through Orlando to get on the interstate at Daytona Beach. The alternate route is longer, but we thought it would be worth it because it was all cross-country driving with only a few small towns between Wauchula and I-95. At least we could keep moving on the alternate route instead of sitting in traffic...or so we thought.
We were making good time heading east on Florida Route 60 toward Vero Beach until we got to a point about half way between Wauchula and the interstate where traffic came to an abrupt halt. Not only was traffic not moving in our direction, very few vehicles were passing in the opposite direction.
We found out later the road was completely closed to traffic in both directions due to an accident about 2 miles ahead of where we stopped. The only traffic passing us in the opposite direction were those vehicles that had turned around. Although a couple of semis were able to turn around in the driveway of a farm, Paul wasn't brave enough to try it with our 38-foot 5th wheel because the driveway was narrow with fences on both sides. Not only that, but the main road itself wasn't that wide, and it had narrow shoulders with drainage ditches on both sides.
The only time we moved for the next 3½ hours were those rare occasions when we crawled forward 50 or 100 feet to fill gaps created when vehicles farther ahead turned around. When the accident was finally cleared and we got moving again, our GPS predicted our arrival time at Stage Coach RV to be around 5:30. We tried finding someplace to stay closer, but couldn't find anything that looked like it had both pull-through sites and good satellite reception so we pressed on to St. Augustine. When we finally pulled into Stage Coach RV, we had been on the road for 8½ hours, which was the longest RV travel day we have ever had.
Stage Coach RV has 80 sites that are almost all pull-throughs. The center road through the campground is paved, but all the other roads and the sites are gravel. As far as we could tell, all of the sites have full hookups. We had one of the preferred sites, with 50-amp electric and a paved patio. Unfortunately, the patios are too small to be very useful because even though we pulled as far forward in the site as we could, the door of the 5th wheel was still about 4 feet short of the back edge of the concrete.
The sites are widely spaced, and the campground was pretty quiet. We got one of the sites that had a big enough hole through the trees for good satellite reception. There is free cable and free Wi-fi that was probably the fastest and most reliable campground Wi-fi we have ever come across. Speeds were excellent even with the campground 2/3 to 3/4 full.
Our site at Stage Coach RV
View down the road past our site
Our cost at Stage Coach RV Park was just under $50 a night ($50 less a 10% Good Sam discount plus tax). That seemed a little pricey, but all the campgrounds in this area are $50 and higher because of their close proximity to St. Augustine. There are some attractive looking state parks nearby which would be a great bargain for us as Florida residents, but many Florida state parks require making reservations months in advance.
We were on the road again around 8:45 on Friday morning for the second leg of our journey. At about 1:15, we pulled into Jolly Acres RV Park in St. George, South Carolina, where we had weekend reservations. Unfortunately, check-in time is 2:00, and the office was closed until then. We took Freeway for a walk then just sat and waited until someone showed up at the office at 2:04.
Jolly Acres has about 30 sites. Most of them have full hook-ups, but there are a few with water and electric only. We aren't sure how many sites have 50-amp electric, but the 50-amp sites sites cost $3 more a night bringing the total cost for our site to almost $36 a night ($34 less a 10% Good Sam discount plus $3 for 50 amps plus tax).
Jolly Acres has free Wi-fi, but it is only available in the immediate area of the office. Our site wasn't more that 200 feet from the office, and we couldn't connect. Fortunately, there was a good Verizon signal.
Some of the sites at Jolly Acres are fairly wide, but some have side by side hookups with shared utility posts making the sites very close on the off-door side. There is grass between a few of the sites, but most of the sites are all gravel because there are lots of trees. Fortunately, our site was one of the larger ones, and is was one of the few without trees.
Our site at Jolly Acres RV Park
View down the road from our site
The campground is pretty quiet. It's about 5 miles from the interstate and about a mile off the main road so there is almost no traffic noise. There are train tracks less than a mile away, but there must not be any crossings nearby because on those few occasions when we did hear train horns, they were fairly distant.
We scheduled a break for the weekend in St. George, South Carolina, because St. George is close to Charleston; and we planned to do some sightseeing in Charleston over the weekend. We'll tell you about it in our next post.
I remember reading about your delay on Facebook!! That was quite a long wait. Glad you were able to finally arrive at your destination safely. I know you all must have been pretty tired!!
Safe travels!!
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Posted by: Gerri | May 08, 2017 at 06:14 PM
Oh what an ordeal. So glad you arrived safely no matter how late it was.
We stayed at the Elks in SA. I don't know if you are a member, but it is a great place to stop for a few days.
Your sites at both campgrounds look great. We love Charleston!
Posted by: Marsha | May 09, 2017 at 12:20 PM