Not Every Job Is Full Of Glamor

There is an up side to that, though.  Most of the jobs we’ve been doing here at the COE don’t have ditches to fall in, and for that, Marti is pleased.

It’s the off season here in the South Carolina/Georgia area where the J. Strom Thurmond Lake is located.  Very few campers are out and about, so all but one of the campgrounds are closed.  Just not enough business to justify the expense of keeping them all open.

That creates another problem.  Because the area is so large and the campgrounds are so spread out in the boonies, with no one around what is to keep vandalism from happening and squatters from sneaking in and setting up camp?  This is especially an issue because it is deer hunting season and sometimes less than honest hunters will go into a closed campground and set up a base camp for their hunting efforts.

We got assigned to do a patrol of the closed campgrounds and several still open day use areas up around the Northern end of Thurmond lake to ensure all was well.  We went off in our COE pickup truck to give the closed campgrounds a look-see.

Each campground has several big (and heavy) steel gates.  Thankfully, the locks are all keyed the same so we only had to take one key with us.

Entering in, the leaves have covered the roads making it hard to stay on track.  Slow going is the smart thing to do.

At some of the day use areas which are still open, there are areas that are closed off with signs.

Because the road was closed off with tape, we had to park the truck and walk in to do our checks.  It was good to get out, stretch our legs and enjoy a nice walk in the woods on a warm, sunny day.

The campsites look so lonely with no one around.

We did see some some places getting a little usage.

We checked the closed gate houses to make sure they were buttoned up tight. 

This gate house was being patrolled by this sentry.  It had created quite a web.

We found one gate house where the door was wide open.  There were two locks, a door knob lock and a dead bolt.  How this door got left open is a mystery.  We looked inside but there was no damage or indication of any nefarious activity.  We locked the door and proceed on our inspection.

Even though there were no people in any of the areas we checked, I drove slowly.  You can’t be too safe when there are roads like this:

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