Adventure & Joy Awaits: Our Weekend at Occoneechee State Park

What a fantastic weekend!! We had the most eventful, hilarious, and back-to-nature weekend at Occoneechee State Park. Our first camping weekend had been here, but we wanted to try coming back and staying on the water. We stayed at C32.

We arrived at sunset and set up our 9-person tent. This tent is vintage, and you can’t purchase a new one from Coleman. It’s called the Coleman Signature Prairie Breeze 9-person tent. I laugh because I found this tent on sale for about $80 about 20 years ago. We used it for fun in the front yard with the children, and then put it up until 2025. Parish remembered the tent, and amazingly enough, he was able to put it all together without a hitch. He packed it away after cleaning it up and fixing a clip. We decided to take the 9-person tent so we could enjoy more space and a little sitting area next to the bed. We brought a wonderful king-size electric blanket with dual controls for each side, along with our little space heater. We stayed plenty warm! We also purchased green canvas tarps for added insulation on the top of the tent between the top tarp and the screened opening.

We love this tent! Easy to put up, a ton of space, and lots of zipper windows to enjoy the sunrise.

Our site, C32, was the best for sunrise viewing and offered tons of privacy. Since we walked down from the road to a lower level to set up our tent, we gained added privacy.

We enjoyed walking on the beach on the other side for sunset.

Can you see the cross through the tree?

Friday night, we laughed while cooking our meal. We repeated the seafood boil, but I forgot the shrimp, so I added more potatoes that never cooked fully. The crunch and Parish’s attempt to keep cooking them for some reason made us laugh hysterically. Our new cooler kept everything cold for the entire weekend! We love this cooler for our travels and less expensive than a Yeti! We got ours on sale at Tractor Supply Company.

At 2:00 a.m. the next morning (our first night of rest), I awakened to what I thought was Parish digging into his suitcase in the tent. Once I found out it was an animal, our imagination got the best of us. It sounded “large”, on two feet, and circling our tent. With shaking hands, I got the bear spray ready, while also calling the park ranger because when you whisper to Siri the word “Occoneechee,” you get a lot of different hits. Once I got the number, you had to go through a list of “If you are staying at a park with the first letter of A-C, press one, etc. We were “O!” Before I could get this amazing ranger on the phone, whatever the animal was, was at the “front door” of our tent. Parish was poised to protect, I had the spray, and, all of a sudden, it scurried away. The ranger answers after I go through all the options, and he begins to explain how folks throw food into the woods to feed the raccoons, and at night, they come up to the area to find food. He noted they have many raccoons in the area. Who knew? And, what a relief as we fell back to sleep. What we discovered is that, as a couple, we know how to stand side by side to defend ourselves, even against a harmless raccoon. I’m making light of the situation on the other side, but in that moment, we truly thought, This is it, and here we go.

Parish found a tree with a heart naturally carved into its trunk. He took a picture and edited the photo to add our initials.

We watched the sunrise, made breakfast, and watched old family videos on our phones, mainly the ones that made us laugh. The family text had sent some funny memories, and that got us going. We’ve had a wonderful life of sweet memories. We rode our bikes into Clarksville and parked them at the other end this time, then walked through the shops. We were able to visit some new ones, and loved the thrift shop and surplus store! In the thrift shop, we found an old board game called “An Enchanting Evening” for $1.50. We stopped in our favorite shop, The Corner at Two One Six, for lunch and saw the same folks who served us the last time we visited. A warm welcome, snacks, and a lovely home-cooked meal. In fact, we saw the same man who cooked the pork barbecue the day prior. I believe his name is Jerry, and his wife’s name is Sheila.

We were also able to visit the famous Hite’s department store.

Lunch:

We returned home with goodies, including yummy snacks from The Corner Store, and played our new board game. I was so hoping that the couple who got rid of the game had some memories in their “secret wish” card, and they did! We giggled, wondering if they were still alive – was it a clean-out the house, or an estate sale? We realized that the more we played, the more the game was conducive to being at home, rather than on a picnic table at a campground. However, we had tremendous fun laughing at the questions, responding to some pretty good ones, and having secret wishes. Again, laughter was good for the soul.

We went to bed no longer rookies to the animal life. Yet, the wind was so high that it sounded like rain on the tent. I kept lying there praying for the rain to stop, and it even sounded like the “rain” was dripping into the tent. Parish got up to check it out, and it was dry – just the wind! He said the stars without light pollution were spectacular! He is a lover of the stars!

We had a lovely Sunday morning, complete with coffee and a good breakfast of eggs, leftovers, and a beautiful sunrise.

We loaded up the car and headed home by way of Starbucks in South Hill on Peebles Street. One of the conversations we had at The Corner store was with one of the owners who worked for Peebles. Parish was a store manager for Peebles, and they had a lot to talk about! The conversations with the folks who live in Clarksville, as well as those visiting, brought a sense of commonality and interesting stories.

We checked out a site across the way and booked it for June 2026! I’ll miss our little haven, but trying something new may bring a sense of adventure!