Photos By Eric Weaver Photography
I never really imagined myself ever taking a trip to Auburn, Alabama. Honestly, I didnt even think there was anything to do there. What brought me to Auburn, Alabama was Eric and I’s van. We found our van listed on Facebook Marketplace in Auburn, so we needed to make a trip there to check it out. A couple days prior to our trip I looked up things to do in Auburn. We were only planning to stay there 2 nights, so I didn’t research a lot of things to do. On my list we wanted to stay at Tuskegee National Forest and visit Chewacla State Park. It was July so we knew we couldn’t stay long because of the heat. We planned on camping at Tuskegee National Forest the first night and Chewacla State Park the second night. Originally we were going to check out the van the day we got to Auburn, but the owner was out of town so we had to wait till the morning after. Auburn is about a 6 hour drive from St Augustine, FL which was where we were. We planned to leave Eric’s house by 1 pm, which would put us in Auburn at the latest by 7 pm. We got all packed up and loaded up my car, then left around 12:30. We bought Cleo a pack of bully sticks to keep her occupied, but she loves car rides so we knew that she would be well behaved. We planned to stay the night at Tuskegee National Forest, but the owner of the van invited us to stay at this campground that his family owns. So we decided to stay at his campground the first night instead of Tuskegee National Forest. We got to Auburn around 6:30 and we decided to stop and get dinner at a restaurant called Baumhower’s Victory Grille. I ordered their “Bam Bam Alabama Gulf Shrimp Tacos” and Eric ordered their “Cheese Calzone”, and we were happily pleased by the food. We ate our food in the car while Cleo ate her food also. After we ate we headed over to our campsite that the van owner offered us to stay at. The site was a tent site on a stream. It was so beautiful. When we pulled up I couldn’t wait to go play in the water with Cleo. Cleo loves water so she was so excited to see that she could play in the streams.
We let Cleo play in the water a little before setting up our tent and getting everything organized for our stay. We saw the van parked near the entrance of the campground so we decided to walk up to the entrance to check it out. From what we could see the van looked perfect. After we checked out the van we got in the tent to relax after the long drive. We went to bed early so we woke up early.
For the day we planned to meet the owner of the van and check out the inside at 11, take it to the mechanic at 1, and after the mechanic we were going to check out Chewacla State Park. Since we woke up early I wanted some coffee and I saw a cute coffee shop online called Mama Mocha’s Coffee that I wanted to check out. We drove over to the coffee shop and I realized that it was Sunday and they are closed on Sundays, so I was really sad. I hope one day I am able to try their coffee. Since they were closed we just drove over to Starbucks for me to order my usual. It was getting closer to 11 so we headed back to the campground to meet with the van owner. It turned out that the van owner couldn’t meet with us due to a work meeting so we would have to meet with the maintenance guys for the campground instead. The maintenance guys were running late due to work so we didn’t end up seeing the van till 12:50 which was 10 minutes before our pre-purchase inspection. We checked out the inside of the van and left to take it to the mechanic shop. We spent an hour and half waiting for the inspection to be completed. Once the inspection was completed, we talked with the mechanic about a few minor issues. We paid then left the mechanic shop. On the way back to the campground we talked about the minor issues. The minor issues were going to end up being costly with the labor and parts. We loved the van, but we didn’t know if we could fork out $1200 on mechanical issues. The van was originally listed as $7390 on Facebook, but we talked it down to $5500 before coming to check it out. We knew we couldn’t spend over $1000 on mechanical work, because we had to have money for the build also. After the issues were shared with us we thought we might as well ask the owner to go down some more on the price. Once we arrived at the campground Eric called the owner and told him the issues that the mechanic found. The issues were the brake rotors being warped, the battery and terminal connectors needed to be replaced, a small transmission pan leak, rear driver side door latch broken, and the heat didn’t work. The overall mechanical work would cost us $1200 which includes labor and parts. After Eric spoke with the owner he said that he wouldn’t go any lower than $5000. We felt very overwhelmed and stressed because we loved the van so much and drove 6 hours to see it, but it had issues that were going to take time and money to fix. We made the decision to not get the van.
We packed up our stuff and left the campground to head to Chewacla State Park. The drive over we were sad and confused. Instead of hanging at the State Park then heading to Tuskegee National Forest we decided to get a campsite at the State Park for the night. We reserved our site and headed there to unpack and set up the tent. The night before it did not get too hot because it previously rained and we were near water. At Chewacla we noticed it was much hotter there. I was kind of worried about Cleo overheating, but we packed a lot of water to stay hydrated. After setting up our tent we decided to drive over to the trails with waterfalls. At the time I hadn’t been super active so I was a little nervous about the hike down the mountain. The mountain down to the waterfalls was super steep. Eric was holding Cleo’s leash and I was just focusing on not breaking my ankles. Once we got down to the waterfalls, they were so worth it. There were a good bit of people there so we stayed our distance due to Covid-19. We decided to hike along the streams and walk across rocks. I’ll admit I was a little worried for Cleo and I was trying to cross these huge rocks, but I knew Eric was good and would watch out for us. Cleo did so good walking across rocks and listening to us.
After our hike we went back to the campsite. The heat was really getting to Eric and I. We felt just drained and nauseous. That night I got super sick from the heat. My stomach was extremely upset and I was shaky. All throughout the day we kept thinking about if we made the right decision on the van or not. We tried to go to bed early, but we had a hard time falling asleep. Once we fell asleep, it felt like I was asleep for only a couple of hours. We woke up even earlier than the day before. We wanted to go take more pictures of the waterfalls and check out the lake so we got into the car and drove back over.
After taking photos we decided to text the van owner and see the van one last time before heading to Tuskegee National Forest. He said that we could see it again so we drove back over to the first campground. We met again with the maintenance guy and decided that we wanted to buy the van. The owner said he could meet with us at 1 pm to sign the title so we had a little time to spare. We decided to go get lunch from Chick-fil-a. After eating lunch it was time to meet with the owner to get the title and keys. After we purchased the van we drove over to Tuskegee National Forest. You can camp there for free at their marked campsites. Once we found the perfect spot we parked and took pics of the van.
We noticed that Cleo was showing symptoms of exhaustion. Eric and I decided it was best to head back to St Augustine that night. We were both dreading the long drive home, but we knew we wanted ac and to sleep in our bed. So we decided to drive back home at 3 pm. We didn’t get home until 9 pm and we were all so exhausted. The trip to Auburn was a really great trip minus the heat. Eric, Cleo, and I want to go back again sometime soon with the finished van build!