By shear luck, we got the last camping site in the Lake Glendale Recreational Area.

Today was our first close call. We packed up camp at Pine Hill Campground around 9am. It was a 1 1/4 hour drive to our next stop, Oak Point Campground, in the Lake Glendale Recreational Area, of the Shawnee National Forest. As I have noted in previous postings, the “federales” love to designate locations with elaborate names.

Anyway, that put our arrival at Oak Point, a “first-come, first-serve” campground, at 10:15’ish. There are other primitive campgrounds around that should have openings, but Oak Point has cheap electricity for us, ancient-ones, with our senior passes. We wanted to ebike the nearby Tunnel Hill State Bike Trail and needed the electricity to recharge the batteries.

When we rolled through the front gate, we were stopped by the elderly camp host. The camp was full but he knew of two campers that might be leaving. He told us to wait as he sped off in his golf cart to check. One of the two campers decided to extend their stay, but the people in site 25 had already vacated. He had us follow him to the site. It was perfect, with a level pad facing Glendale Lake. Later, I watched as he turned away other would-be campers at the gate. We had obtained the very last site. I have to commend the camp host. He was gracious, friendly, and worked hard to keep his ship running smoothly.

If you look closely, you can see Lake Glendale in the background. A 3-mile trail that circles the lake goes right behind our trailer.

After a slow setup, we headed for the bike trail. We chose a ten mile section between Tunnel Hill and Vienna. It featured a tunnel, a long high trestle, lots of bridges, several cuts through sandstone ledges, and a thick tree canopy.

The trail itself was everything you could ask from a rails-to-trails bike trail. The scenery was pleasant and the crushed limestone surface was superb. The town of Vienna, however, was a letdown. It had zero charm, which surprised me as most towns and villages along bike trails have at least some character. And the name, Vienna, held out so much promise. The best part of Vienna was the trailhead park on the outskirts of town.

The day was cloudless and had that perfect blend of crisp air and warming sun. It reached 75º. Oldsters, including us, were out in force on the trail. We all had ebikes. Not known for quickly adopting, or even understanding modern technology, the elderly have certainly swarmed toward ebiking in droves.

With the return trip giving us a total of 20 miles, it felt like a day well taken advantage of. Vienna did have one thing going for it. It had great cell phone service. After loading up the ebikes, we drove back to the park in Vienna to catch up on our journaling, emailing, and other sundry internet tasks. Before we knew it, another day went into the books.

This photo is an experiment that turned out kind of odd, but interesting.

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum.

Dave and Wanda

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