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Off to see an Eclipse

8 04 2024

After departing Tucson, we’re planning a relatively quick transit across New Mexico and Texas hoping for clear views in the upcoming eclipse “Path of Totality”. We last viewed a total eclipse in 2017 when we were in Douglas Wyoming. This time we’ve chosen Bandera Texas as our “prime” spot, with an expected totality of just over 4 minutes.

Our first stop after departing Tucson is at Hacienda RV Resort in Las Cruces, NM. We generally stay at the KOA in Las Cruces, but with extra travelers in our group and eclipse traffic, the park isn’t available. However, Hacienda works just as well for a couple of nights here. The full hookup sites are wide and specious. From Las Cruces we’ll spend one night in Van Horn at the familiar Van Horn RV park and one night at Southern Living RV Park in Ozona, TX. Both of these parks offer bare necessities and are just fine for quick overnights.

Southern Living RV Park, Ozona, TX

We’ve visited Bandera before, but this is the first time we’ve stayed at Riverside RV Park. The Medina River flows along the southern edge of the park and in warmer weather would provide welcoming shade and calm quiet swimming holes. From the easy check-in to the personable park hosts, this is a very nice place. We’re parked in site #77, a wide pull-through site that is mostly shaded by a big tree overhead. The tree is a bit messy, but provides great shade for sitting outside or around the provided picnic table.

Riverside RV Park, Bandera, TX

Riverside RV Park, Medina River, Bandera, TX

As eclipse day arrives on April 8^th, so do the clouds across the Texas Hill country. However, all preparations continue with huge tripods of telescopes and camera lenses positioned towards the sky all around the campground. Around 12:30 through partially cloudy skies, we’re able to see the “bite” out of the sun. As totality time at 1:30 approaches, the lights flicker on, birds are quieted and an eerie hush settles over the park. Complete darkness lasts for 4 minutes and 4 seconds in this part of Texas, and very quickly the sun starts to reappear in the now mostly cloudy skies. Not exactly the presentation we’d hoped for, but unfortunately it seems like most of Texas and many other places across the US experienced the same cloudy conditions.

Riverside RV Park, Bandera, TX – “Totality”

While we’re here primarily for the eclipse, we have a great time exploring Bandera and the surrounding area. During an excursion to Kerrville, we check out the new Howdy’s Bar & Chill, formerly the Wild Ass Hey Barn. Back in Bandera, we found a new favorite eatery – the Trail Boss Steak and Grill. Located off the main street, this new restaurant offers a wide selection of steaks, seafood and burgers, combined with a full bar and excellent, attentive staff. A special shout-out to Conner who serviced us during both of our visits – thanks for a great job! And, of course we had to check out the famous Cowboy Bar of Bandera!

Howdy’s Bar & Chill, Kerrville, TX

The Cowboy Bar, Bandera, TX

After Bandera, we’ll spend 3 nights at one of our favorite KOA’s, the San Antonio/Alamo KOA. The park is east of town and provides easy access to the Historic Pearl development on the grounds of the former Pearl Brewery, the downtown Riverwalk and some of the historic residential areas in between. We once again enjoyed the Black Laboratory Brewery and tasty Mexican food at Rosarios, now in their beautiful new location.

Historic Pearl Brewery, San Antonio, TX

Rosarios San Antonio

From San Antonio we’re headed to South Padre Island after a brief stop in Harlingen. More from SPI…

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Tags: bandera, eclipse, las cruces, ozona, san antonio, van horn
Categories : Spring Road Trip 2024

Hanging out in San Antonio

28 03 2021

Good morning from site G2 at the KOA in San Antonio!

San Antonio KOA – Site G2

We like this campground – nestled in a gentle bend in Salado Creek, this KOA offers around 300 sites in a nicely wooded location just east of downtown San Antonio. This “KOA Holiday”, with swimming pool, fishing pond, onsite Hunt’s Brothers Pizza, Fred’s Fixin’s Café serving breakfast and lunch, plenty of hiking along Salado Creek and great sites, cabins and other facilities. The fancy KOA Patio sites go for upwards of $80/night, full hookup pull-throughs are $60/night and more basic, but with prime locations, are back-in water/electric for $50/night.

San Antonio KOA, Patio Site

San Antonio KOA, end sites (a bit tight)

Since departing Arizona, we’ve been on the lookout for possible Covid vaccination locations as we travel across Texas. Prior to arriving in San Antonio, we’ve secure our first vaccination in Alice, TX. Alice constantly comes up as an available Texas location, and it’s just about 2 hours south of San Antonio. So, on Thursday we make the drive to Alice to receive our first jabs. We’re scheduled for #2 back at Alice, but hopeful that we can move to a CVS on South Padre or closer in Brownsville or Harlingen. We’ll see how things progress.

On Friday afternoon we head for the River Walk in search of a quiet outside table for a late lunch and a few beers. However, things are a bit too busy and way too many maskless faces make our time on the River Walk short. After a quick beer at the Little Rhein Prost Haus we head back to the KOA.

Little Rhein Prost Haus, San Antonio Riverwalk

After exploring possibilities off the busy River Walk, we discovered Black Laboratory Brewing just 3 miles from the KOA in the unique Dignowity Hill neighborhood. This area is one of the up and coming neighborhoods of inner San Antonio and boasts some beautiful old homes. Black Laboratory Brewing has been in their east side location for about a year, opening just prior to the Covid shutdowns last March. Fortunately with lots of creativity (and no doubt, lots of capital) the owners managed to stay in business and are today creating some very unique brews. We enjoyed Mox’s IPA (named after the breweries dog mascot) and Grizzly Greg’s Mountain Ale, a great tasting amber brewed with Texas honey and juniper barriers.

Black Laboratory Brewery, San Antonio

Black Laboratory Brewing

With winds forecast to 45 MPH on Saturday, we opt to spend one more night at the San Antonio KOA. On Sunday we made the transit to Rivera, TX – and another favorite park, SeaWind RV Park. We’re in site 143, an interior back-in site that provides nice space and privacy. From Rivera we’ll continue into the Rio Grande Valley, and to Tropic Winds RV Resort in Harlingen before moving out to South Padre Island. More from SPI…

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Tags: black laboratory brewing, brewery, koa, rivera, san antonio
Categories : Spring Road Trip 2021

San Antonio KOA

13 04 2019

San Antonio KOA Holiday

After staying at Travelers World south of downtown San Antonio a few times, we opted for the KOA on the east side and were impressed.

With about 300 sites, this “Holiday” park was selected as the KOA Campground of the Year in 2015. The wooded park-like setting alongside Salado Creek provides beautiful sites with many offering extra space, or grass/patio areas. We’re parked at D-1, an end site with a large concrete patio complete with two Adirondack chairs, a fire pit, picnic table and large grassy area.

Prices at both Travelers World and the KOA are comparable with the upcoming “Fiesta” celebration set to kick-off next weekend. The rate for our “patio” site was $78/night less our 10% “Value Kard” savings. The park is about a 15 minute drive to the downtown River Walk area, or about a 30 minute ride on a city bus with a stop just outside the main gate. There’s a made-to-order Hunts Brothers pizza onsite, as well as “Fred’s Fixins” breakfast cafe that’s open Wed-Sun. And, unlike so many other KOAs the WiFi actually worked well here!

The River Walk has always been a favorite! We enjoyed a boat tour on Sunday afternoon and a wonderful dinner at Rosario’s on Monday. Tomorrow we’ll head south to the Rio Grande Valley, where we’ll spend a night or two and then cross the Isabella Causeway Bridge to South Padre Island. More from Padre…

: The Alamo, San Antonio

: San Antonio KOA Holiday

: San Antonio KOA Holiday site #

: Rosario’s Mexican Food, San Antonio

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Tags: koa, san antonio
Categories : Spring Road Trip 2019

Leaving the Texas Gulf Coast

18 04 2018

Lake Corpus Christi from Site #23

After leaving South Padre Island and spending 3 nights in Harlingen we’re parked on the shores of Lake Corpus Christi at the State Park. This beautiful city park-like setting includes 3 camping areas, the Opossum Bend Camping loop with about 24 electric/water sites, Javelina Camping loop with 24 full hookups and Catfish Cove Camping area with about 30 sites with water only. We’re still close enough to the gulf coast to experience some windy conditions. But, hopefully those will diminish as we travel inland toward San Antonio tomorrow. We’re only planning a quick overnight at Corpus Christi. Tomorrow we’ll continue northwest, skirting to the south of San Antonio and meeting friends at Bandera, TX – back in the scenic Texas Hill Country!

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Tags: lake corpus christi, san antonio
Categories : Spring Road Trip 2018

Choke Canyon & SeaWind RV Resort

22 03 2018

Choke Canyon State Park

From Kerrville, the lower Rio Grande Valley is about 300 miles to the southeast and much too far (for us) to travel in a single day. Plus, we need to circumnavigate San Antonio via a route that takes us through Bandera, Hondo, Devine and Jourdanton. In hindsight, this was the wrong routing. Turning south at Jourdanton, both highway 16 and eastbound 72 are rough bumpy examples of what too much heavy truck traffic will do to a secondary roadway. Next time we’ll detour over to I-37 somewhere south of San Antonio and on to Three Rivers via highway 281.

With cabinet contents slightly askew, we arrive at Choke Canyon State Park, on the shores of the first of several impounds that provide water for Corpus Christi. In a strange twist of fate, we’re assigned site #133, the same site that we occupied 7 years ago during our last visit to the park. The site provides water and 30/50A electric. A dump station is near the park entrance. OTA TV from San Antonio is good and the wildlife is abundant through out the campground. We especially enjoyed watching the deer as they made their way down to the water and the wild turkeys as they strutted through the campsite. While the campground offers WiFi near the entrance station, we didn’t try the booster to see if it would work – and instead used the very good 4G LTE T-Mobile service.

Choke Canyon Site #133, March, 2011

Choke Canyon State Park, Three Rivers, TX

Over the past years, we’re heard good reviews for an RV Resort at Riviera, TX – about 2 hours SE of Choke Canyon. Instead of fighting the seemingly relentless south winds that are blowing out of the Valley, we opt for an overnight at the SeaWind RV Resort. SeaWind RV is on the shores of Baffin Bay, a large bay south of Corpus Christi Bay. Here sites are laid out along the water, in 4 spacious row and around Kaufer Lake. Many of the sites are beautifully landscaped with shrubs, flowers, cactus and palm trees. We select site #279, a back-in site along the bay. The full hookup site provides electric, water, and a sewer port. The Passport America rate here (for up to 7 days) is $20 – a great value! OTA TV is good from Corpus Christi and the campgrounds WiFi works fine. This park is somewhat out of the way, but offers some great privacy and quiet sites.

SeaWind RV Resort, Riviera, TX

From Riviera we’ll head to Harlingen, our home for a few nights before moving out to South Padre Island. More from there…

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Tags: bandera, choke canyon, riviera, san antonio, seawind texas, three rivers
Categories : Spring Road Trip 2018

San Antonio Missions

27 03 2015

San Jose Mission, San Antonio

After departing Kerrville, we make the relatively short trip to Travelers World, a conveniently located RV resort just south of downtown San Antonio. We’re back at Travelers World to explore more of the historic San Antonio River Missions and to spend some time downtown at the Riverwalk. Last time here, we rode the updated river trail, but didn’t stop to explore any of the old Missions or go all the way into town. This RV Park is an urban park and somewhat noisier than other more remote parks. Although it backs to a beautiful golf course and river trail area, there is still some traffic noise from nearby Roosevelt Ave. They also seem to have a real bias toward long term travelers. As a “2 or 3 nighter”, we’re once again relegated to the shortest, tightest spots in the park. And, with nearly 10 sites empty, they also seem to have a propensity to put everyone side-by-side. But, at least on this trip, the convenient location outweighs a bit of noise and tight sites. Plus, these are full hook-up sites including about 60 channels of cable – so very luxurious compared to sites we’ve been in over the last couple of weeks.

With a cold front threatening wet and windy conditions on Thursday, we work most of the day using the park’s complimentary Tengo Internet network. Tengo has been installed at several of the RV Parks we’ve stayed at, and in general offer unimpressive results. But, this time the WiFi works great with bandwidth transfers running along at around 6-8MB. By 2pm with the weather improving, we decide to go check out Mission San Jose along with the National Park Service Visitor Center for the San Antonio Missions. We’re just in time to watch an informative video about past life in the missions and then join a guided tour of the old mission. There are 4 other Missions that were originally built, or moved to the San Antonio area including the famous Alamo. The Spanish used these Missions to entice the native Texan Indians out of their small, difficult to defend communities and into the relative safety of the missions. In exchange they gave up their “pagan” religious practices in favor of Catholicism and their native languages and customs to become “Spanish”.

On Friday, after deciding to spend one more night in San Antonio, we join Dave and Mary for lunch and a relaxing, fun afternoon on the riverwalk. We’ll pack up in the morning and make the 4 hour trip south into the Rio Grande Valley.

San Jose Mission, San Antonio

San Jose Mission, San Antonio

San Antonio Riverwalk

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Tags: mission san jose, san antonio, travelers world
Categories : Texas Roadtrip 2015

Waiting out the storm in San Antonio

10 04 2013

Mission Concepcion, San Antonio

With the threat of thunderstorms and hail across our homeward path, we’ve opted to spend another day in San Antonio. We arrived here on Monday from Harlingen. We’re parked at Travelers World just south of downtown San Antonio. We opted to check out this park because of the location along the San Antonio bike/hike trail system. Via the trail, we’re only about 4 miles from downtown. The trail continues about 6 miles south just beyond the I-410 loop and incorporates 4 of the Spanish Colonial missions built along the San Antonio River starting in the 1720s.

Travelers World has 165 full hookup sites, beautiful trees, lawns, individual concrete patios with picnic tables and is impeccably clean. Besides the office, library and game room there is a small pool area, a dance hall, a shower house and a few maintenance buildings scattered around. One side of the park backs up to Riverside Golf Course with amazing views across the course and along the San Antonio river. For river views the best sites are along Allegro Circle, sites K-U. For privacy overlooking the golf course, sites 10-15H are best. The largest sites seem to designated for large trailers and coaches, run right down the middle of the park in sites 83-105. We’re in a smaller back-in site #125, along the golf course, but very tight when you have neighbors in the sites immediately adjacent. (you can touch your neighbors slide-out while sitting at your picnic table) (SITE MAP) The WiFi service is provided by Tengo and is adequate for most uses. We did have a few short term outages each day and found that it wasn’t fast enough for Hulu broadcasts. This is our 3^rdstay at a park with Tengo Internet, and all have been less than impressive. However, there is good Verizon 3G and somewhat flakey T-Mobile 3G and 4G coverage available as alternatives.