As usually happens with us, when we get close to home several of the stops are over nighters. Partly to get through much of the desert area that we have been in before, and partly to make it to predetermined holiday reservations. I will give just a quick recap to some of the over night locations.
First was Fort Stockton RV Park, 3604 KOA Road, Fort Stockton, TX. 79735.
Good over night stop, flat gravel sites with grass and trees. Good space between sites, mostly pull throughs. A full hook up 30 amp site was $33.75 a night. They did have a large grassy dog park. The roads were gravel, and there was some freeway noise.
Next was Hacienda RV Resort, 740 Stern Drive, Las Cruces, New Mexico. 88005.
We were here for three nights to shop and catch up on some laundry. We have been here before, so it was a good restocking location. Flat sandy gravel pull through's. Most are ?Jack and Jill?, so we asked for a end site to not have a neighbor too close on our drivers side. Had some noise from the freeway, and a nearby train at night. No shade to speak of. We paid $44.82 a night for a 50 amp FHU site. There is a Walmart across the freeway from the park.
Tucson/Lazydays KOA, 5151 S. Country Club Road, Tucson, AZ 85706.
Our 5 day stay at Tucson/Lazydays KOA was trimmed to 3 days to dodge an incoming storm. Normally not a big deal, but we also liked the idea of adding the days to one of the next stops. We have stayed here before, and love this park. While truly a desert campground, they have done an excellent job making this park comfortable and well appointed. The park has installed and operates a covered RV parking section. The cover is formed out of a huge section of solar panels that cover a section of the RV spaces. We didn't stay under the cover, as the sun felt good on the cool fall days.
We stayed in a premium site which had a paved patio and grass, and was surrounded by a 3' hedge that gave Heidi the pooch a natural barrier to patrol. We paid $60.95 a night for a 50 amp FHU site. The pool and hot tub are good size and well maintained, and they have a huge well appointed gym. For the 3 days there I used all the amenities as often as possible. I will be back to this park.
Fort Beale RV park, 300 Metcalfe RD, Kingman, AZ 86401 was our next over night stop. Gravel and sand sites are mostly pull through's. They are long and flat, great if you don't want to unhook the towed. A very clean well maintained park, and the road noise from the freeway was minimal. We paid $33.68 for a 50 amp FHU site. Good over nighter.
Las Vegas Motorcoach Resort, 8175 Arville Street, Las Vegas, NV 89139.
We have stayed here before also, this is a Class A only resort, and I believe that there is a minimum length, but I am not sure of what it is so call and find out if you are not sure. There are owner ?built out? sites, and ?standard? sites with just pavement and some grass. We like the unimproved sites as it gives us a lot more room to spread out. On the improved sites, many of the owners have some of the amenities covered or locked so they are not accessible to use, so why pay the extra for them.
The location of the park is good, far enough off of the strip to not have too heavy traffic, but close enough to allow easy access to entertainment and shopping. We stayed on a week rate, plus 2 extra days. It averaged out to $73.55 a night. It is not much more than a premium site at the Oasis RV park which is the opposite side of I-15 on Blue Diamond Road. For the different rate you get a gated, guarded community, a large club house with gym and custom showers. There is also 4 different pools with hot tubs in the park, so getting to one is never very far away. If I were only staying a day or two, the Oasis would be perfectly acceptable, but for a longer stay the extras are nice. We met friends here for Thanksgiving, so for places to dine there were many choices to pick from.
The last stop of this adventure was to go back to the mountains and have a family reunion of sorts for our oldest son's birthday. And that also meant getting to see the grand kids! The only choice we had due to the time of year was
Big Bear Shores RV Resort, 40751 North Shore Road, Fawnskin, Ca 92333. This was our first time here, and hopefully the last. This is another of the owner occupied RV sites, and some are put into the rental pool. They are in various stages of development, and have different amenities on each site as well.
At the time of year we stayed 11/29 to 12/6, the place was nearly deserted. There was only us and one other renter there most of the stay. The rates are still way expensive for what you get, we stayed in a lake front site (even though the water level was extremely low). The drought and lack of snowfall has hit the area pretty hard. We paid $125 a night, which was way excessive, in my opinion. Even though we made our reservations weeks before, when we arrived we almost didn't get in. It is gated, and fortunately we got the maintenance guy about 15 minutes before he was due to leave for the night. There was no paper work for us, and no one had prepared for our arrival. He would later tell us that the owners are going through a divorce, and the couple is fighting about the park. No one is paying any attention to the day to day business. If we didn't already have significant plans to see family for several days, we would have left and drove home.
The clubhouse was closed, and the gym equipment was out of order, the pool and hot tub were out of order, and little had been done to clear the roads of snow. But they still want to sell you a lake front lot for $399,000. Sure, don't hold your breath waiting for my check...
Normally when we stay in Big Bear we stay as the Forest Service campground, Serrano, which is across the street from this park. And the rates at Serrano are about $30 a night. But Serrano is not open year round any more, so we had no choice.
THE WRAP UP
After the family visit we headed home. We left on this adventure on April 1st, and returned back home on December 6th. It was a great trip, and we stayed in 51 different campgrounds. We covered 10,006 miles from start to finish. We went coast to coast, and seen some new sights, revisited some previously visited places, and met up with several RV Forum members along the way.
There were some bumps along the way, various minor repairs, and just the day to day experiences that make the Rving life so much fun and rewarding. We have been back at the stick and brick for about 3 weeks, and the holidays are in full swing. I have already had to jump in and handle several maintenance repairs on the the house, and even some of the vehicles that sat quietly in the garage while we were gone. So either on the road, or at the homestead, there are chores to keep me busy.
And yes, Diane has already started planning the 2017 travel season and making reservations. Not even a month at home and we are already looking forward to the next trip. But for now we are happy to make contact with all the friends and family we haven't had a chance to sit down with for a while. And I am sure that I will come up with another project to tackle here at the house. But getting the RV ready to roll is always in the back of my mind.........
