Southern 500/lee State Park Weekend

[Warren Mary Ellen]

Had a great weekend camping back at Lee State Park over Labor Day Weekend with our daughter who met us there. When we camped at Lee State Park back in June we mainly used it as a hub to connect to other stay parks in the area, so Saturday we took it easy there and did a little exploring there. The park is on the Lynches River but the road was closed in June due to seasonal flooding. This time it was open and the scenery down there is now along the river and some other wetlands areas.

Sunday we headed over to Darlington for the Southern 500 NASCAR race. We met up with the Corders (RockyTopSC on the forum), who are the other Anderson, SC Camp Inn owners. We had relied on them for what to do at a race as they attend a lot of them and this was our first one. While standing in line to get in the sky opened up and we got drenched in a deluge. Since the race would be hours away and we all needed dry clothes to avoid hypothermia, we went back to Lee State Park, changed clothes, and grabbed some food/coffee at a nearby Waffle House before heading back to the race. With the delayed start it meant we left the track the second time at 2:00am when the race finished and got back to the camper at 2:55 am. We probably knew we were too old to be out at 3:00 am, but we have an interesting story to tell.

Got home late Labor Day avoiding the Hurricane Dorian evacuation crowds on the Interstates by using back roads to cross the state. We have found Lee State Park to be a great place to go to and we liked the race so we will probably go back to one in the future.

 

[Van_and_Terri]

Had a great weekend camping back at Lee State Park over Labor Day Weekend with our daughter who met us there. When we camped at Lee State Park back in June we mainly used it as a hub to connect to other stay parks in the area, so Saturday we took it easy there and did a little exploring there. The park is on the Lynches River but the road was closed in June due to seasonal flooding. This time it was open and the scenery down there is now along the river and some other wetlands areas.

Sunday we headed over to Darlington for the Southern 500 NASCAR race. We met up with the Corders (RockyTopSC on the forum), who are the other Anderson, SC Camp Inn owners. We had relied on them for what to do at a race as they attend a lot of them and this was our first one. While standing in line to get in the sky opened up and we got drenched in a deluge. Since the race would be hours away and we all needed dry clothes to avoid hypothermia, we went back to Lee State Park, changed clothes, and grabbed some food/coffee at a nearby Waffle House before heading back to the race. With the delayed start it meant we left the track the second time at 2:00am when the race finished and got back to the camper at 2:55 am. We probably knew we were too old to be out at 3:00 am, but we have an interesting story to tell.

Got home late Labor Day avoiding the Hurricane Dorian evacuation crowds on the Interstates by using back roads to cross the state. We have found Lee State Park to be a great place to go to and we liked the race so we will probably go back to one in the future.

As a NASCAR employee, thanks for attending the race. I think most fans who camp enjoy the camping as much as the race. We currently own a 550, but want a 560 as a retirement gift to myself. BTW, we have reservations at Hunting Island and Hutchison Island in October. Hope the hurricane is kind to both.

 

[Jim Carter]

Sounds like a fun time. Great photos!

 

[Warren Mary Ellen]

As a NASCAR employee, thanks for attending the race. I think most fans who camp enjoy the camping as much as the race. We currently own a 550, but want a 560 as a retirement gift to myself. BTW, we have reservations at Hunting Island and Hutchison Island in October. Hope the hurricane is kind to both.

Yeah, we enjoyed it a lot. I've wanted to go for years. For a lot of my career, I coached football and track in addition to teaching so we didn't have a lot of free time to go to any of the tracks. My daughter has gotten hooked into racing and is on the Formula One SAE racing team club at Clemson. She has gotten some great experiences doing that including get a tour of Hendrick Motorsports up in the Charlotte area. The main reason we didn't camp at the track is I don't have a generator and Labor Day weekend in SC requires AC. We did the Ride Along at Daytona last summer and that helped hook her into NASCAR and racing too.

You'll really like Hunting Island, it is a beautiful place. It is the one to watch to see what Dorian does as the last caused some pretty significant erosion at a couple of spots. They lost a lot of camping sites and the water is pretty close to the lighthouse there now.