10 Day Family Road Trip “I can’t believe it’s not overlanding!"

E.J.

Explorer
I'll preface this with a big thanks with the planning to 97tjguzzy and GravelRocks, saw some awesome stuff based off ya'll's suggestions :beer:

My little family just had a blast meandering close to 2000 miles from Atlanta, GA to Sandusky, OH and back. Along the way was lots of camping, not enough wheeling, popped in on some extended family, made some new friends, and one drive through safari.
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loaded up and ready to roll
Our first stop was a visit to my father-in-law’s house in Asheville, NC. We took a nice fire road drive through Pisgah national forest up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
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Let's roll
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Navigating through Pisgah

Well a nice drive until we noticed smoke coming out of the hood. Ugg, the car had split a CV boot and threw grease on the exhaust pipe. Took it easy into town and picked up some supplies for a redneck repair job. Let’s just say I over-analyzed the situation and compounded the problem.
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Not ammused

Set out the next day for Laurel Springs NC without a whole lot of confidence in my repair job. My wife’s navigational abilities had us get off at the wrong exit early on right at a mall with a big department store auto service center. I figured screw it I’ll just have them pop in a new axle and we’ll be on our way in a few hours, got a mall to wander around and whatnot blah blah blah. Six hours and two axles later we hit the road with an awesome new clicking sound from the front end and not so nice feelings for the big department store auto service center. Bad idea taking a parts picky car with a decent amount of mods to a shop that should just stick to oil changes. At this point we decide to turn around and limp home and at least salvage the weekend by camping a few nights along the way. Rolled back to Pisgah (clicky sound is dying down now), all of the dispersed campsites are full. Make our way to North Mills River campground at dusk, they are booked solid. After parading my now cranky two year old in front of the camp host he agreed to let us boondock in their overflow parking lot. Whew.
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Boondock breakfast
Had a pretty decent night’s sleep. Ate breakfast and packed it in early. Started heading south, the car was acting 90% normal. Said screw it again and turned back north, ditching the original route we replaced two days of scenic dirt road driving with four hours of interstate highway. By God we were going to West Virginia.
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Getting back on track on the Blue Ridge Parkway
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Pulled in to my buddy from offroadsubarus.com's West Virginia spot late afternoon. Had a super awesome stay there, can't wait to get up there for some wheeling. The beers were especially tasty, I got down with my DO mac’n’cheese and one of the other folks staying there whipped up some yummy kabobs. Good times.
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Seperated at birth?
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Now we're camping
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DO Monkey bread

Next stop was AEP ReCreation Land in SE Ohio. Got to the area a little late to really explore around for the ideal spot. Let’s just say our neighbors might have been a little redneck. We’d stay there again during the offseason hopefully in a more secluded spot.
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E.J.

Explorer
Continuing north we headed to Sandusky Ohio to spend a few days visiting family and do some touristy stuff. We camped at Comfort Inn, roughing it hardcore. The highlights of this stop were a trip to a drive through safari and a giant cheese shop.
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If you see this pic then you've seen 80% of Ohio
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Bet this guy would make you nervous about your nice paintjob
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Everything out there loves carrots
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Feeding all the animals was making us hungry, time for a cheese run.
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followed up the tasty cheese sandwiches with a little walk on the shore
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E.J.

Explorer
Heading back south we headed to Big Bone Lick state park in Kentucky. The campground was especially neat and clean. I couldn't resist picking up some swag from the gift shop. An early evening thunderstorm chased us into the RTT for the night. My wife mixed leftover mac-n-cheese and leftover sloppy joe for an unusually tasty dinner.
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Crossing the Ohio river into Kentucky
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LOL
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Wheeling the Bob
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Happy camper

After Big Bone Lick we headed down to Pineville Kentucky to stay in Wilderness Trail OHV Park. This was the jewel of the whole trip, the park is huge and you can camp anywhere. I'll let the pictures do the talking...
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The locals call this "The bridge to nowhere" but we found it to be the bridge to awesome.
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We rolled around for a bit and ran into a farmer looking for his cow, he directed us of an old concrete pad that might make a good campsite.
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RTTs are the best when the car is parked on flat ground
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Hanging like a champ
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E.J.

Explorer
Woke up to the most gorgeous morning...
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This lady came by to check us out

Got some breakfast in us and explored the park for a bit on the way out.
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Poser shot, didn't want to give this a real go with all the gear in the car
 

E.J.

Explorer
Got out of the park and continued southbound...
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This lady was living the dream
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Still haven't seen it, maybe next time.
The last night of camping we spent at Hiawassee Oconee state park campground in Tennessee. Pretty normal Friday night crowded campground situation, the hot showers almost made it worth it though.
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The park ranger had a hard time believing I parked like this without leaving the pavement


The next day we had a pretty short uneventful drive back to Atlanta. We weren't dying to get home but it was nice to get there. We're all looking forward to getting out again.
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Beautiful north GA
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Rolling into Atlanta
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Did I mention we live IN Atlanta?
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Just shy of 2,000 miles later and home sweet home. I hope the other Foz wasn't too jealous...
 

jackkent

New member
What a nice trip you have had together with your small family. I like all of your pictures and can see that you all had a lot of fun. I hope I can do it one day, if I will have my own family too :) Looks like it will be great bonding to have an off road adventure with my family and being around them all the time.
 

mkitchen

Explorer
Looks like a great trip

I wouldn't mind some of that green out this way. We are feeling a bit dried up, what with all the fires going on. Not even sure I am going to bring my DO on the next trip due to fire restrictions. So seeing your trip makes me feel cooler already.
Mikey
 

LR Max

Local Oaf
Awesome Trip!

Quick question: What route did you take from the insterstate to the Wilderness Trail area? I'm looking at the map and there doesn't seem to be and real winners in that department.
 

E.J.

Explorer
Thanks for all the nice comments ya'll!
Awesome Trip!

Quick question: What route did you take from the insterstate to the Wilderness Trail area? I'm looking at the map and there doesn't seem to be and real winners in that department.
We got off 75 S at US-25 E then north on US-119 to the bridge. It's a little bit of a haul off the interstate, we just followed google nav.
 

xjaugie

Adventurer
Great Write up. Enjoyed reading it. I myself have been known to drift around those eastern mountains a time or two.
 

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