June bayed at a deer at 6:10 this morning, right through the tent wall, and I don't think there was a person awake within a quarter mile of our campsite after that. Wes said "good morning" to the deer. It didn't stick around.
That was the end of our one night at Lake Waccamaw State Park, and the trip envelope says $74. That is the cheapest trip we've taken since we started this in March of last year, cheaper than the $81 night at Jones Lake, and that one had been the record.
Why Lake Waccamaw
Homecoming week in Pembroke just wrapped up, and like every year we stayed home for it: family, food, the parade, cousins back from three states away. After a week like that we didn't want a long drive. We wanted water, quiet and something close.
Lake Waccamaw is about 45 miles from our place near Maxton, which makes it about 90 miles round trip. It's one of the Carolina bays, a big oval lake that's shallow and clear and full of things that don't live anywhere else in the world. We've driven past the turnoff a dozen times on the way to the coast and never stopped. This time we did.
Nearly everything we did there was free. The boardwalk out over the lake, the trail along the shore under the cypress trees, the visitor center with the fish and snail displays, and a long time just sitting on the pier watching the water go from gray to gold. Wes brought a rod and caught two little bream and let them go. June went everywhere on her leash, sniffing, and slept in the back of the car while we cooked supper.
It was hot, of course, mid-90s on Friday afternoon, and a thunderstorm rolled through around five. June does not like thunder, so she rode it out in the car with Wes, who claims he was keeping her company but was really just in the air conditioning. By six it had passed and the evening was cool and pink.
This trip worked because almost all our food came from home. I packed the cooler Thursday night: chicken thighs marinated in a zip bag, corn on the cob, a tub of potato salad, a pound cake from the freezer, eggs, bacon, bread, and two frozen gallons of water. We cooked supper on our little camp stove and breakfast the same way. We didn't buy a single meal.
In July in this part of the state, ice disappears fast. The two frozen jugs and a block from the freezer lasted until breakfast, but I bought one bag at a gas station on the way in, and it was half water by morning.
The numbers
- Campsite, one night, with the reservation fee: $28
- Gas: 90 miles plus a little driving around, about 3.3 gallons at $3.12, $10
- Groceries from home for the cooler: $24
- Ice: $4
- Firewood bundle: $7
- One ice cream sandwich, split, from a gas station on the way home: $1
Total: $74.
The tent was Tonya's again. The camp stove was a yard sale find from years ago. June came along, so we didn't need to pay Tonya in dog food this time.
For perspective, filling up Wes's work truck costs about $80 these days. This whole overnight trip, for two people and a beagle, cost less than that.
What made it cheap
Close, one night, a campsite and a cooler. That's the whole recipe. Any one of those alone isn't much, but together they took a trip that might have been $200 at a motel on the coast and made it $74.
I'm not saying every trip should be like this. I love a real bed and a fish shack supper. But in a year when gas went up in the spring and a wheel bearing ate into our savings in May, it felt good to have a trip that cost almost nothing and felt like a real vacation for 24 hours.
The money we didn't spend goes on the front of the envelope, toward August and the Outer Banks. Mr. Earl gets a souvenir from every trip, and this time it's a jar of honey from a roadside stand near the lake. Seven dollars, from my own pocket, not the trip account. Some things are worth keeping off the books.
