Occoneechee State Park, VA

Occoneechee State Park, Clarksville Va

We chose Occoneechee State Park to start our trip for its location – close enough (4 hours) to Reston to get back home if we forgot something major – but we weren’t anticipating that this park that we'd never heard about would be so beautiful. We arrived in drizzle that would become light snow by morning, in mid-March temperatures cold enough that we were one of only several RVs/trailers on our loop.

Our first walk with Pippi was to the Park Office, where the delightfully Southern-accented office manager was so happy to learn we were the Deanes, whose welcome-to-the-park registration paperwork had been uncompleted and worrying her just a bit for two days, and now everything was in order! Ramona enjoyed the park office’s educational display on the Occaneechee Indians (not a typo – that name was spelled variously by everyone who came in contact with this tribe, which didn’t bother the Occaneechee themselves since they had no written language and thus no opinion on the matter). Ramona and Pippi are pictured in front of an Occaneechee home replica.

A walk before sunset took us to the historic Occoneechee Plantation Terrace Gardens, with foundation stones of the long-leveled plantation home, the remains of an interesting ice house, and long-neglected boxwoods that had grown into trees.

Would We Come Back Here?

We would absolutely come back. The lake is large and and it would be fun to explore the area more, do some kayaking, even windsurfing, winds permitting. The area is mostly about the lake, though--at least from our perspective and admittedly fairly quick look.

Would We Live Here?

Probably not. We are looking for a place closer to a big city, medical facilities, etc. Also, Virginia tends to have that in-between cold weather that is more annoying than fun.