#72 Oconee River Campground Watkinsville Ga with India's Sister Tommye and Uncle Neal

While in Georgia we wanted to visit with India’s sister who lives near Athens in a small town called Watkinsville. We found a little free campsite not far away and it was called her Oconee River Campground. It had about five RV sites that were not huge but long enough to back in to be comfortable. They had no water or electric but it was a mighty nice place for about $5 a night and you had access to the boat ramp. This was really cool because we have two kayaks. In evening during our first night was pretty strange. We saw a kid down in the campsite below tending a fire and didn't think much of it other than he was our neighbor. At some point a woman drove up and just wanted to know all about us and was a lot more nosy than I really felt comfortable meaning she wanted to know if he was with me could she take a look inside the RV. Could she meet and Savannah and it was really creeping me out Then she kind of started giving me something almost like a sob story but how things are tough out there and she was raising the kids by herself and I'll and I'll just kind of stopped her in her tracks. I said something because I smelled a donation request coming pretty soon. Will work for food kind of thing. I didn't have any patience for that so I just said man I know everybody's got a story and I know you got an interesting one but there is nothing I can do to help you. I think you’d be better than you checking in with Social Services because you got like three or four little kids. I can only help a little but it looks like you need a fair amount of assistance right now. That kind of got her dander up and she both started crying and just kind of got in her car and left in a bit of a hurry. I didn't know it at that second but has she had turned the corner she found herself in a ditch with a broken wheel of some sort. About this time the young man who was tending the fire who looked to be about 12 to 14 came walking up and he said what was that lady saying to you? I said well she had a story she seemed a little upset a little bit and I didn't know how to take her exactly. He said she's my mom and she's really drunk.

You might as well know that she's gone around the corner got herself stuck in a ditch and I'm kind of glad. If she keeps on she's liable to get us kids killed. Then he sorts of just quietly asked me if there’s any way I might call the police. He said because if he does it he's just going to be in a world of trouble. He hoped I might do it discreetly. He thinks that those kids are in danger. I realized she would probably go to jail. This was all kind of a heartbreaker and we kind of reached out to the young man. I showed him inside the RV and India fixed him a little something to eat. I had to walk way up to the end of the road or something to get a signal. I went way down about half a mile away to where the phone with function and I called 911. I will tell you this in about 5 or 10 minutes to Blue Lights came and more and more I could hear this woman screaming at the police officers. I guess I knew I'd done the right thing but it was all very uncomfortable and she spent the night in jail. The police kind of assured me that I was pretty much safe for the night. I kind of told him that I didn't feel safe tomorrow if you let her out of jail and put some kind of restraining order on her.

That night was less than perfect sleep because of the crazy lady but now those kids are most likely in a foster home or something. Social Services kind of stinks but then the young man said it wasn’t the first time.

The next day we had it out and went to go visit his sister Tommye and Neal the husband and their son young Neal. They have a daughter Rebecca who is at Old Miss University. We visited had a meal and just messed around. It was all very good over the period of the weekend we went to Athens to the Botanical Gardens at the University of Georgia. Tommye's very involved and this that the other and then the next morning we invited Young Neal to come and do some kayaking. India stayed back this time but Randall, Neal and Savannah went kayaking up the river. I chose to paddle against the current upstream so we can float back. Its a relaxing way and it was great but then it was time to move on.