#316 Bandit's Roost Park, Wilkesboro, NC

This is the place but because of recent flooding all this gorgeous stuff was closed or under water

Whenever I was looking for federal campgrounds in North Carolina Powhatan and Bandits Roost came up.

For the last 3 years or so I had thought wouldn't it be nice to go by. We've just never been in a position to do so and when we thought about doing it, they were closed because they close in early winter.

Well now we had the opportunity to take a look at Bandits Roost and we did it's in Wilkesboro North Carolina.

My Dad was raised not too far from Wilkesboro. That would be the big city near where he was raised in one direction and in the opposite direction there will be a city called Elkin. We were on Highway 40 going east and really honest with myself Wilkesboro wasn't actually on or near 40 but a bit of a bunny trails up and over.

I did it anyway because I wanted to check it out.

Like many federal campgrounds it was a Corps of Engineers facility about a very large man-made lake that's a very typical setup for federal campgrounds.

The person that checked in was very friendly and put us into a site. We got settled and about the time we had finished setting up he came down and sheepishly said you know I put you in the wrong site and I apologize.

I guess he thought I was going to be fussy but I was very accommodating. I said well everybody has a thing happen once in a while so I'll gladly moved to the proper site.

The way I remember it was only had one night available and I wanted three so I had told him if anything at all changed let us know as soon as possible. What happened was I was so accommodating and he was so thankful he seemed to go way out of his way to help me find a site.

We went on a little quick day trip somewhere looking for an alternative because there was also another Federal place across on the other side of the lake all the sites were really hard to get into and all such as that so that didn't really work.

This area had had an extremely large rainfall and there had been some big flooding so a great deal of the camping areas with shut down and that's why the availability was way down.

Anyway, I had a phone call the very next morning rather early and he said I got a site if you want it but come get it quick. I moved the rig and had my three nights. I was very grateful that he worked so hard to get me a place, just a neat guy.

He and his wife were full-time volunteer type RV people.

They didn't bounce around like we do they stay at this area in the mountains for 6 months and then they go to Florida for 6 months but they host 12 months a year somewhere.

Wilkesboro is probably one of the more conservative places in North Carolina like all of North Carolina is typically conservative in a religious kind of way.

If you're going to a UU its going to be a Wilmington, Raleigh, Charlotte kind of thing and really not out in the country kind of thing.

Well, they had one in Wilkesboro which was just kind of pretty cool really.

When we went on the Sunday morning to the service and using maps we got to where it was supposed to be. It was kind of an old school there was no longer operating and just when we arrived it was just a giant big dirt parking lot.

We wandered around until we found the folks.

I guess there's only about 6 people that showed up and they all know where it is but if they want to be easy with visitors at little that little signage would be great.

We kind of went in best we could and we saw a guy and he said yes over this way still a little signage would have been great.

When we settled in, they had a really interesting discussion. One fellow led for about 15 minutes and then we all just had a very general back-and-forth discussion and that's just the very stuff I love. It was a great experience and I thanked them for being there. We are out in the country not where you would expect any kind of a liberal gathering.

After the service we went into town for lunch and while wandering around I saw the coolest street sign.

It was my last name Cothren. Although it is an unusual name in most parts, apparently we were a pretty big deal up in this part of the NC hills.

That would be about it for our visit but as I mentioned our cat Bert has been just a little bit weird lately.

He's really getting to the point to where he likes very much not to be found when it's time to leave.

This particular facility had to check out time at 3 p.m. so that helped quite a lot.

It was our day to leave and it was around 1 in the afternoon so I had plenty of time to gather him.

I began to walk all around kind of meowing and looking for him and there was no Bert to be found anywhere

Although I've talked about it a lot still had not bought the tracking collar

I looked high and low and kind of went down into the woods below and I kept on with this boy and finally he me out back and I said my goodness there you are.

I thought the problem was solved but this child was three feet from me and he would roll around on his back and want me to rub him and I'll put he wouldn't come to me and you wouldn't follow me home.

I would go up to your RV to get the cat carrier and come back and get him. I was able to find him the second time and he still wouldn't come near me and this went on for a while and finally he disappeared for good and I couldn't find him.

Eventually had to let the people up at the office know I couldn't find my cat and we were doing the best we could. He said well just there's somebody coming in so we need to move right along. We finally found Bert and got him into the RV around 4 p.m. All I can say is he's a very naughty boy and he's starting to make his crazy with this behavior and with that we went on east a little bit further.