Love Letter to Site 11

There are 60 sites at Modoc Campground in South Carolina, and 59 of them have electricity. Site 11 does not. In the middle of a Southeastern summer, that would be a definite drawback. In Spring, though, it might be cold but with a good battery and a propane heater, you’d be all right. Every time I camped at Modoc, my heart wanted Site 11 but it was either too hot or someone else had reserved it before I could. Last week, I finally got it. Breeze and I went all in on Site 11 for five amazing days.

After I got settled that first day, I sat outside, enjoying the sunshine and a light breeze. I did some reading and a bit of  photography work while I was waiting for the sunset.  When it finally came, it was amazing. This was the view out the back window, as I lay in bed reading. Not bad at all!

You may be asking yourself “why is Site 11 site so freaking awesome?” Let me try to explain…

The photo below shows the turnaround at the end of the campground loop. (All campers, from little trailers to big bus RVs, need a turnaround at the end of the road so that they can get back out again.) See the loop in the photo? In the top middle, follow that little spur and you’ll see my truck and trailer waaaay down there. No one, and I mean NO ONE can drive near me.

Site 11 sits on the far edge of one of Modoc’s two peninsulas that stick out into Lake Thurmond. The privacy rating on this site would be a 12 or 13 on a scale of 1-10. I never heard another car, another person, a screaming kid, or a ambitious teenager splitting wood unless I was walking the road for my daily constitutional. At Site 11, all was wind, water, and silence. Ahhhh.

This is the Google Maps satellite view. The red pin shows the main part of the campground. That blue dot way out there? Yep, that’s me! Now you might think that the site at the end of that lower peninsula would be better, but it’s not. It’s right at the turnaround loop, so those people get to hear every truck and trailer, every RV, every lookie-loo scoping out the sites. Site 11, at the end of that long spur off the turnaround loop, has none of that nonsense. It’s so remote I felt like I was in my own private little campground.

The first few days at Site 11 were awesome, so warm and sunny that I put the awning just for the shade. I sat outside in the afternoon, reading and writing and sometimes just staring off into the distance. It was incredibly relaxing. I enjoyed another beautiful sunset on the second day.

By the next afternoon, though, those clouds had coalesced into one big storm system. Wind howled at my door, my windows, and my nerves for the next day and a half. It was intense! I could see whitecaps out my windows. I felt the Alto rock when the gusts of 30 mph winds hit. Being surrounded on three sides by water felt a little like being in a lifeboat, bobbing along with the wind and tide.

And then, the next morning, I woke up to utter silence. It took me a minute to realize the wind had finally stopped. I stepped outside to sunshine and warmth, two things that had been in very short supply the day before. My solar panels liked the change, too, and got to work charging up the battery. It was my last full day at Site 11 so I made the most of it, sitting outside for a while and simply enjoying being so close to the water’s edge.

On last sunset, with water so calm it was hard to believe the fury of the previous day’s waves. Monday, I hitched up and drove away, leaving Site 11 for someone else to enjoy. I may never make it back there, but at least once, I had the best damn site in the campground, bar none.

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When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)