Our time in Austin was jam packed with quality family time, and lots of social time. We could have easily extended our stay another few days just to enjoy some time to ourselves and attend to some errands.
But it was time to move on, particularly since we had our windshield glass replacement scheduled north of town in Georgetown for Monday morning.
With the heat and humidity climbing in Central Texas, and our Alaska summer adventure coming together, we were feeling the desire to start heading north anyway.
So off we went on a leisurely meandering in the general direction of our next planned stop – St. Louis.
Georgetown, TX – Glass Replacement
So we wouldn’t be navigating morning rush hour traffic – we opted to move to the closet RV park to our appointment, which happened to be the Army Corp of Engineers park Cedar Breaks (our review). We’ve loved COE parks in the past and have been looking forward to trying out more.
I snagged one of the last spots open over the weekend and we planned two nights with some hopes of a little decompression.
Our drive up, while only about 40 miles, was stressful. Austin traffic just keeps getting worse and worse with each visit. It seems drivers are getting more aggressive as traffic has increased.
I can recall when I was a wee-youngster driving in Texas, when you turned on your blinker people slowed down and let you in. I used to associate driving in Austin as a friendly experience. But no more.
Twice on this visit – when we turned on the bus blinker to make our way over to our exit, people actually decided to speed up and completely block our path into the right exit. Crazy. We’ve never had that happen anywhere else. (Granted.. we avoid big cities whenever possible.)
So, we ended up having to re-route onto a toll road and adding a few extra miles to our short repositioning.
When we arrived to the park and headed to our lake view spot – we were disappointed to discover that our reserved spot was extremely sloped.
While marked on Recreation.Gov as being a 55′ back-in spot, there was no mention that the steep incline would really only make this spot ideal for a 25′ RV. There was no way we’d be able to get even remotely level.
Thankfully, the camp hosts were able to move us to one of the few spots left – in the back without even an inkling of a lake nearby.
Oh well. At least it was quiet, and we made the best of it.
Taylor, TX – Sweet Sweet Recuperation
We got up an ungodly hour on Monday morning (7am) to make our appointment at Pro Glass in Georgetown. We were told to expect four hours for the installation of the new windshield, but we were prepared for a multi-day ordeal if there were problems.
The installation went super smooth, and to our complete surprise was done in under an hour.
So here we sat in their way tiny parking lot bewildered. We actually hadn’t considered the job could be done in less time than quoted.
Our best case scenario has us routing to a Walmart parking lot for the night about an hour away. But being finished at 9am, that just didn’t make any sense at all.
So we got out all of our favorite apps for tracking down campgrounds, and spotted a few not too far away. Just east near Taylor was a grouping of COE parks around Lake Granger. We couldn’t find many reviews on them, so picked the closest one and drove out to Taylor Park (our review).
The gate attendants greeting us were super friendly, and basically told us that there were exactly 3 rigs in the entire campground, and they weren’t expecting many in all week. They suggested we go pick out a site we liked, get set up and then come check in. So we did.
We honestly had a hard time picking out a site. All of the sites are well spaced, and some with lake views. And get this, they were all level!
We fell in love with Site 21, which had a picnic gazebo on top of a hill of wildflowers with a lake view. Sounds kinda rough, eh?
At $20 a night with water & electric, we decided this was a right fine place to hunker down for a few days and get some of that decompression time.
For three days we didn’t leave the park or talk to another soul. There was a hiking trail that connected right at our site, which kept our FitBits happy (we aim for 10,000 steps a day.. not that we meet it all the time.)
The solitude was just what we needed, and we kept pinching ourselves that it was real.
Yup, we kinda fell in love with this place.
Palestine, TX – Bus Nut Rendezvous
Several years ago we were invited to stop in to visit some fellow GM bus nuts in east Texas, and again John and Shirley extended an invitation.
John’s father used to drive buses for a living so he grew up riding them – and has owned a 4905 for many years.
The way his eyes light up when he talks about anything related to buses just charms my socks off, so we were delighted to stop in for a night and catch up.
Just like our last visit, John immediately dragged us into his bus barn to geek out… and learning of our upcoming repainting project, he started taking out some stockpiled parts he had been saving.
He graciously gifted us some metal pieces that will make some of the body work much easier.
We shared a lovely dinner together, and drooled over bus porn all evening and shared about life on the road. Thanks for a great visit John & Shirley… see you next time!
Daingerfield, TX – Errand Catch Up
We don’t plan much in advance, and usually just look ahead at the next possible stop or two. We knew we needed to get to St. Louis by the end of the month, but hadn’t decided on a route quite yet.
We were poking around options in NE Texas and spotted Daingerfield State Park (our review). With high reviews and only 1 spot left for the weekend, so we decided to snag it.
We arrived mid day, and were assigned to a large pull thru lake front site with full hook-ups. All of the 10 larger rig sites in the park are awesome and large.
We actually hadn’t been on full hook-ups since late February, so we used the opportunity to do some thorough flushing of the holding tanks. We also found a nice laundromat in town to get caught up on laundry.
For dinner, we tried Outlaws BBQ – which has some of the best BBQ we’ve ever had. The turkey was so smokey sweet and succulent, it melted in our mouths. We went back for seconds. We should have gone back for thirds.
All and all, we loved our stay in Daingerfield – the town is charming, and everyone we encountered was super friendly.
What’s Next?
While parked in Daingerfield, we connected with our friends Forrest & Mary online and compared upcoming paths.. which seemed quite aligned. So we made plans to meet up in Arkansas and caravan together for about the next week into St. Louis before we need to part ways again.
It’s awesome to be back together again.. and I look forward to the fun the four of us will get into together. We’ve now meet up with these guys in more locations than I can keep count of, and they’ve become very dear friends.
Live Video Chat Announcement
Join us for our next Live Video Chat this Sunday afternoon…
When: Sunday, April 26 at 5:30pm Central / 3:30pm Pacific
Topic: Costs of Full Time RVing
Where: Our Livestream Channel (you’ll need to setup a free account to join in)
One of the most frequent questions asked about full time RVing is how much does it cost?
Truth of the matter is.. it depends. On a lot of factors that come down to your personal preferences. We know of folks doing this for under $700/month to more than $5000/month.
In this live video chat, we’ll go over some of the choices that can impact your costs on the road — from fuel, campground fees, RV choice, insurance, pace of travel, entertainment, vehicle maintenance & registration, style of travel, food preferences and more. We’ll be using our Monthly Travel Cost article & cost log as talking points.
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Austin traffic has always sucked… but spring time in the hill country is why we come to Texas in the spring… simply beautiful…
Central Texas is probably one of my favorite places to be in the sprint for the wildflowers – definitely worth the traffic frustrations 🙂
Yes, the traffic in Austin in awful. It once took us over 30 minutes to get to the Costco parking lot we could see from our hotel. I know what you mean about the aggressive drivers. In the small La. town where I grew up, we used our signals and knew that someone would motion us to enter traffic, turn, or whatever. Here in Albuquerque, it seems a turn signal is regarded as a person challenge to be sure you don’t get to go where you need to be. If you drive here, you should be aware that when your traffic light turns green, that doesn’t mean you should go. You have to wait for all the people who are running the red light at the left turn signal across from you. Seriously, be careful! Love your blog, and your tales from Nomads. We’ll be out there ourselves as soon as our granddaughter – she lives with us – graduates in two more years!
> turn signal is regarded as a person challenge to be sure you don’t get to go where you need to be
Hah.. yes, that’s definitely what our Austin driving experience this time around felt like.
Great post y’all. I’m thinking gas is going to cost me more than I thought. The one time I drove the travel trailer any distance at all, I watched the gas gauge literally move in front of my eyes! Not a good sign! We’ll see.
Compared to this time last year… fuel is over a $1/G cheaper… the savings is certainly nice. One thing we love about full timing is how much in control you are of your monthly expenses. Fuel becomes part of your ‘rent’, and you can decide how many miles each month you want to pay for.
Unfortunately, we’ve had that experience on the roads one too many times. Guess what people, we’re big enough to push our way in and who do you think will win?
It’s nice that your windshield replacement went so smoothly and you found a great place to stay, it looks beautiful.
We enjoyed meeting you guys in Austin and we hope to see you on the road!
It was great to finally meet up with you guys too! Until next time…
Cherie & Chris, Thank ever so much for this post! We just started full timing and have found your site to be tremendously helpful! This post is exactly what we were looking for as our son lives in College Station TX and we hope to winter/spring in south and east Texas. We love State Parks and we are grateful to you for sharing your experience at parks within visiting distance to our son. Thank you, Cindy & Mike
That area of Texas has some great options for state and COE parks. Hopefully you’ll find many great adventures while being close to Aggieland.
Wow did we ever have bad timing. I stopped at Cedar Breaks on Monday. No room at the inn so went to other side of the lake and now staying at Jim Hogg for two weeks. Have also stopped at Granger a few times. With my Senior pass, $11 night is hard to beat. Sorry we came so close to staying at same park.
Wow.. talk about a near miss! Sorry we didn’t get to reconnect on this passing. Enjoy the lake, we hear Jim Hogg had better sites anyway. Those senior passes make the COE parks a fabulous deal.
Love those water front sites, but the one on the hill with the little gazebo looks like heaven. How sweet to pick up some “spare parts” along your route!
We’re suckers for water views 🙂