Vogel State Park summer camping

A Georgia summer would NOT be complete without a camping trip to my 2nd favorite park,  Vogel State Park.  It's located about 3 hours from home (with a trailer and traffic) in the Smokies.

It has swimming, hiking, fishing, putt putt, and usually TONS of families.  And it is beautiful - located in the valleys around Blood Mountain and Slaughter Mountain (I know).  Despite the names...

We pulled into the campground after harrowing traffic (again) and tried to go to our favorite site.  It took forever to get backed in....then our cords and hoses were not long enough to reach to the hookups...so we left again (empty site sadness).

Luckily our 2nd favorite site, right nearby - home of the infamous 'Jessie fell off the retaining wall incident of 2012' was still open.  These are my favorite sites because they hook right up to the hiking trails, and you can hear the creek running nearby.

After we arrived, relaxed and took it easy, and had bit of dinner.  Jeff bought a bunch of firewood from the camp store - because usually Vogel wood is "not too wet".  Um.  Yeah.  Not this time.  We went through a LOT of lighter fluid after giving it the good ol' college try for a couple hours.

We also paid our penance to Blood Mountain from the same retaining wall...Jeff had an "incident" while trying to get said fire going...it's steeper than it looks!

On Saturday we FINALLY got the state geocache but didn't do much other hiking - it's really pretty strenuous here and I didn't feel up to it.  But we DID go swimming - or at least tried to.  The weather was absolutely beautiful - high of 71 degrees.  But a spring-fed mountain lake in that temperature is COOOOLD.  We lasted maybe an hour in the water and then just watched people paddle boat and kayak at the rental marina.

All in all - not our "typical" Vogel experience but definitely fun, relaxing, and wonderful!