We're back from the family trip to Austin, Texas over Christmas and New Years. As a family trip, it was wonderful. As an RV trip, it was not what I want to be doing with an RV. Reason? Maximizing precious family time meant minimizing travel time which meant for long days on the road during the shortest daylight days of the year. Six days of driving of which four were 460 to 480 miles each. Because there were four adults and one small child in the RV, we felt it necessary to have firm full-hookup campground reservations each night on the road. So in the end, the RVing part seemed like deadline after deadline after deadline... One place said they would not let me check-in after dark, so that added to the stress of getting started on time that day.
I'm looking forward to the day when DW and I can take off at a liesurely pace, maybe 300 miles/day maximum, with the general area of interest targeted and a rough schedule. I've always liked Wendy's sig line, "We can't be lost because we don't care where we're going." That's my idea of RVing.
As to the overnight stays, all three of the places I asked about in this thread were pretty good. The KOA in Milton, Florida being the best of the three.
Our time in Austin was going to be at Old Settlers RV Park as discussed here, but we had to pull out of there shortly after arriving because of a brake system problem discussed in this thread. We ended up staying with our daughter's family in a hotel, which actually made for a better family time over Christmas. [BTW: Old Settlers doesn't take reservations but had said that they "never fill up." They were down to the absolute last open spot when we pulled in there on Christmas Eve.]
The brake problem turned out to be not serious, but that was another stressful deadline that I could have lived without -- having to find a GMC truck repair place that could work on it the few days right after Christmas day. The first & closest place I called said, "We can put you down for the 2nd [of January.]"
Thankfully, the only other place within 50 miles was able to get it fixed in 2 days. But again, I'm looking forward to the day when we could just adjust our schedule, relax, and wait for the repair shop to get to it. Within reason, of course. ;D
DW and I were going to end our trip with a little relaxing "down time" by staying our last 5 nights at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park on the Florida panhandle coast, but freezing weather set in and we had to cut it two days short. It was 36 degrees when we pulled out of there at noon on Wednesday and was headed towards a hard freeze of 22 degrees in a 20 mph wind that night. Topsail had gone from being totally packed out on Monday to being a ghost town by the time we pulled out. They actually gave us a refund on our last two nights, though, which a lot of places won't do for early departure nowadays.
All-in-all it was a good trip, even though I arrived home late, tired, and with a touch of stomach flu. I'm looking forward to better travel days ahead, however...
I'm looking forward to the day when DW and I can take off at a liesurely pace, maybe 300 miles/day maximum, with the general area of interest targeted and a rough schedule. I've always liked Wendy's sig line, "We can't be lost because we don't care where we're going." That's my idea of RVing.
As to the overnight stays, all three of the places I asked about in this thread were pretty good. The KOA in Milton, Florida being the best of the three.
Our time in Austin was going to be at Old Settlers RV Park as discussed here, but we had to pull out of there shortly after arriving because of a brake system problem discussed in this thread. We ended up staying with our daughter's family in a hotel, which actually made for a better family time over Christmas. [BTW: Old Settlers doesn't take reservations but had said that they "never fill up." They were down to the absolute last open spot when we pulled in there on Christmas Eve.]
The brake problem turned out to be not serious, but that was another stressful deadline that I could have lived without -- having to find a GMC truck repair place that could work on it the few days right after Christmas day. The first & closest place I called said, "We can put you down for the 2nd [of January.]"
Thankfully, the only other place within 50 miles was able to get it fixed in 2 days. But again, I'm looking forward to the day when we could just adjust our schedule, relax, and wait for the repair shop to get to it. Within reason, of course. ;DDW and I were going to end our trip with a little relaxing "down time" by staying our last 5 nights at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park on the Florida panhandle coast, but freezing weather set in and we had to cut it two days short. It was 36 degrees when we pulled out of there at noon on Wednesday and was headed towards a hard freeze of 22 degrees in a 20 mph wind that night. Topsail had gone from being totally packed out on Monday to being a ghost town by the time we pulled out. They actually gave us a refund on our last two nights, though, which a lot of places won't do for early departure nowadays.
All-in-all it was a good trip, even though I arrived home late, tired, and with a touch of stomach flu. I'm looking forward to better travel days ahead, however...
