The Road Home

2 05 2021

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 84th 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…

 

 





Spring Creek Marina & RV, San Angelo

10 04 2019

After departing Amarillo around 10AM, we’re parked at the Spring Creek Marina just south of San Angelo, TX by about 4PM.  It was a long day but we’re now south and east of the windy cold front that is forecast across west Texas tomorrow.  We’ll spend 2 nights here before moving into the Texas Hill Country.  We last visited San Angelo in 2017 when we spent several nights at the State Park.

Spring Creek Marina & RV is a park like setting, on the shores of Lake Nasworthy, just south of San Angelo.  With about 80 gravel sites, many with long term residents, we’re assigned site #79. This is a large site with good views to the lake and a WiFi access point on site.  While the map shows two shower houses, both are locked and appear to be well beyond usability.  The marina store and check-in office offers a wide variety of fishing supplies, water toys and ice cream snacks.

On Wednesday, preceding the cold front, temperatures pushed into record-category triple digits forcing us from the trailer into the air conditioned comfort of Zero One Ale House and The Twisted Root Burger Company, two of the fun eateries near the Concho Riverwalk in old town San Angelo.  Tomorrow we’ll pack up and head east to the Texas Hill country.  More from there…

 





San Angelo Riverwalk

30 04 2017

San Angelo Visitors Center

Who knew there was a Riverwalk outside of San Antonio?  At the confluence of the North Concho, the Middle Concho and the South Concho Rivers, San Angelo has constructed a beautiful 4 mile river walk.  Along the walk are gardens, parks, exercise areas, golf courses and a river stage.  Beginning at the impressive Visitors Center you can stroll all the way along the river to the original “Block One”, the first location of buildings in San Angelo complete with Miss Hattie’s Bordello Museum.  Originally a town built to support the Ft. Concho Fort, San Angelo has grown into a city of over 100,000 residents including about 10,000 students at the Angelo State University.

San Angelo Riverwalk

Commemorating San Angelo’s historical importance as a wool marketing center

In addition to the RV sites at the State Park, there is an very nice RV park located on the shores of Lake Nasworthy at the Spring Creek Marina and RV Park.  With rates up to $55/night, it’s a bit more pricey than the $28/night that we paid.  The Lucas Oil Drag Boat race is held on Lake Nasworthy in late June.

With winter weather beginning to clear to the north, we opt to make a move to Bottomless Lakes State Park just east of Roswell.  We spent 6 nights at Bottomless Lakes last year – complete reviews are here.  After just a quick overnight this year, we’re back on the road to Las Vegas, NM.  More from Las Vegas…

Bottomless Lakes State Park

Bottomless Lakes State Park





San Angelo State Park

26 04 2017

San Angelo State Park

Good Morning from San Angelo.  Located nearly in the center of the triangle formed by I-10, I-20 and I-35, we’re almost equal distant from DFW, Austin and the split of I-10/I-20 in west Texas.  The State Park is west of town on O.C. Fisher Lake.  We’re parked in Site #19 of the Red Arroyo camping area.

Initially backing into site #15, we managed to find a spike embedded in the low wooden wall around the front of the campsite causing a 2” gash and instant flat tire in one of the trailer tires.  With one flat, and another tire somewhat damaged, we opted to make an appointment at the local Discount Tire Shop.  Thanks to the guys at Discount Tire, with nearly pit-stop like finesse, they had us out with 4 new tires in 36 minutes!  And, about $600 later, we’re now sporting 4 brand new Goodyear Endurance, the newest US made trailer tires available.

Cold fronts through the plains of west Texas are noticeable events.  When the strong breeze (we’d call it wind in Colorado) changed from southerly to northerly at about 2AM, it’s a trailer rocking, dust blowing, tree swaying event.  With continued high winds after our tire “detour”, we opt to spend a 2nd night at the state park.

As the front approaching Northern New Mexico and Colorado turns into winter storm warnings for regions north, and the wind continuing to howl at San Angelo State Park, we once again have extended our stay.  We’re hopeful we can continue our journey north on Sunday or Monday…