Small Home – Big Yard

Our first stop is a favorite, By the River RV in Kerrville.  The Texas Hill country is green and lush this time of year, and even a few bluebonnets linger in the wetter areas.  On Monday, May 3rd, Kerrville posts a record high temperature of 96 degrees.  Whew, we’re glad we picked a 50Amp site!

Guadalupe River at By the River RV Park

By the River, site #54

While in Kerrville, we take a drive out to Kerrville-Schreiner Park, a city-owned park with RV facilities on the southeast side of the city.  The park offers lots of shady sites, and both partial and full hookup 30 & 50 amp sites.  However, many of the sites are very near the Bandera Highway (173) and overall are in need of some TLC.  Cracked pavement, low tree limbs and rusted electrical boxes indicate this park has long deferred maintenance that needs to be accomplished.  Overall, By the River is a much nicer setting.

Kerrville-Schreiner Park

From Kerrville we’re 1 night at San Angelo State Park.  As in past visits, we’re parked in site #19, a very large back-in with good views of the lake and a couple nice big shade trees.  Services here include 30/50A, water, a covered picnic table, fire ring and grill. This spot overlooks what used to be a fairly busy boat ramp.  However, with Fisher Reservoir levels dropping below 10% full – there is no boating traffic present during our stay.

San Angelo State Park, site #19

In Lubbock, we’re in a new park, the Retreat RV Resort, located at the SW corner of I-27 and the 289 loop.  This former mobile home park has been completely refurbished, new concrete roadways, parking pads and patios at each site.  All sites are back-in (except 2 pull-throughs) and provide 30/50A service, water and a sewer port.  We’re parked in Spruce #6, the last row furthest from I-27.  The former mobile home park had beautiful, mature trees that have been kept in the new park with some careful and creative placement of sites, a pool area and a playground.  These trees and grassy areas are best to the front of the property and by the time you get back to Spruce, the trees are small and sparce.  If you are looking for shade, sites along Cedar, Fig and Hickory would be best.  If you like full sun – Pecan, Redwood and Spruce are best.  Most sites are East/West orientation.  If you prefer a North or South site, you’ll need to move to the perimeter sites along Ash (back-in to North) or Walnut (back-in to South).  Overall, this is a good value for $42 (plus $6.00 in mysterious fees).  A bit tricky to find, the entrance is on the I-27 south-bound frontage road.  Approaching from the south, take 84^th Street, over to Avenue P, then onto the loop 289 frontage road.

Retreat RV Resort, Lubbock, TX

From Lubbock, we’re headed to Clayton Lake State Park. The State Park is about 12 miles off of the main highway in Clayton.  Upon arrival, our campsite is plenty long enough,  but access is via a very short culvert.  Without much maneuvering room, we find the only way to access the site is to back-in to this pull-through site.  However, checking our cell phones, we find virtually no network access.  This won’t do.  With site access issues and no cellular coverage (and no park WiFi) we abandon our site and head back into town.  The best option appears to be the Clayton RV Park, a former KOA with plenty of sites available tonight.  So, for a total of $29 here and $18 at the state park, we’ll pay $47 for our last night on the road.

Clayton RV Park

On Friday, May 7th we cross over Raton Pass and into southern Colorado.  We’ve been on the road a total of 112 nights and covered almost 4000 miles from southern Colorado to south Arizona and far south Texas.  We’ve visited 22 different RV parks, managed to get our Covid vaccines at CVS Pharmacies in Alice, TX and Brownsville, TX and had a wonderful time with friends and family.

Next up is a “first of summer” trip to Lake Pueblo State Park followed by a 20 night trip starting in Carbondale, CO and including Livingston, MT and Sheridan, WY.  More from there…