Connected Again

It's Saturday, August 25, and we're in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

For the past week, we've had no Internet and very little cell phone service, but we've had a good time.

Tomorrow, we head to Santa Fe, where we will stay for a week. I should have connectivity while there. That will give me time to post several items about what we've been doing for the past week, so keep checking to see what we've been up to. We've seen some truly fascinating country.

Happy Trails!

Texas RV Park, Big Spring, Texas

Big Spring, Texas, doesn't have much to offer as regards RV parks. After various Internet searches, we decided to stay at Texas RV Park when we came to Big Spring to visit our daughter and her family.

Texas RV Park office. During our 3-night stay, we never found the office open.

On the plus side, the park provides full hookups, and at my site all utilities were grouped together, and that made things very neat and efficient. And that is about where the positive remarks can end.

The majority of the residents at the park appear to be long-term, and several seem to be very long term. These guests have the best sites, of course.

Except for a few sites near the office, most sites are like this -- no shade and no personality.

Upon checking in, the registration clerk told us that new owners had taken over the park in late June. She commented about how the previous owner had let the park run down and had received several citations. We do not see that any improvement has been made by the new owners, but perhaps they have not had enough time to do much. During our stay, though, I saw no maintenance activity, so I'm not sure that anything will change.

We were assigned to site C, an uneven site with absolutely no shade. I had to use 2 boards to level my trailer. The picnic table was placed against a fence; it was old with peeling paint. Weeds and grass had not been trimmed in weeks. Considering that this country gets little rain, it may have been months since the weeds and grass had received any attention.

Our site, site C. The site is long enough to accommodate the longest rigs, but it is not level and there is absolutely no shade.

 

Peeling picnic table and overgrown grass and weeds at our site.

Donna did laundry while here. The facilities were dirty. There is a lock on the door for security purposes, and residents punch in a code to enter. The door would not fully close, so the room could not be locked. So much for security.

This is how I found the "secure" laundry room when I went around the park taking pictures. I do not believe the door is capable of being locked, though residents are provided a code and there is a lock in place.

I investigated the shower/bathroom facilities while at the laundry room, and found them to be in need of care. Although we were given a code for these facilities, there was no lock whatsover on the the men's facilities. A unisex facility had an "out of order" sign on it. The website describes these facilities as "deluxe" restrooms.

Door to the men's restroom. Notice the sign instructs how to use the lock pad; unfortunately, there is no lock pad in place.

When we arrived at 1:30 Wednesday afternoon, the office was closed. A sign on the door provided us with a number to call. The attendant who arrived to check us in told us that the air conditioning had gone out and that the compressor would need to be replaced. During our entire stay, the office was never open.

Cable TV and WiFi are provided to guests. Although there were plenty of channels and the Internet signal was strong, both failed several times during our stay, sometimes staying off for an hour or more at a time.

And all of this is available for a mere daily fee of $37.50. I guess you can charge high prices for bad facilities when there is little competition in the area.

Trip Update: August 18. 2012

Our grandson spent the night with us last night, and our daughter Courtney, her husband Michael, and our grandson Xander joined us for lunch today at Joe's Italian Bistro in Big Spring to celebrate both Michael's and Xander's birthdays. It was good to visit with them; it's hard to leave them. We've gotten used to being nearby for the past year, so it will be strange to not have them close over the next few months.

But tomorrow, we pull out of Big Spring and start the next leg of our journey. All of the tasks we had set for ourselves are behind us now. We've visited Donna's family in Conroe and Livingston, we've visited my brother and his fiance in the Ft. Worth area, we've completed all of our medical appointments, we've taken care of all our financial responsibilities, and we've prepared our truck and trailer for the trip. Our journey really begins tomorrow.

So, I'm counting the start of our trip as beginning in Conroe on July 27, for that is when we began living in our trailer. I'm tracking our mileage and costs from that point and want to share that information since others may be interested in knowing what a trip like this costs. Keep in mind that I am only tracking gas and campsite (or lodging) costs, not food or anything else. I'm also not tracking gasoline spent on side trips -- only gasoline used to pull the trailer from one location to another. So far, here is what we have done:



The spreadsheet above is a screen shot and may be difficult to read. If so, I'll look at some way to improve this. For now, you can see that the total gas cost is $244.10 for 590 miles. When pulling the trailer, we have been averaging between 9.5 mpg and 11.6 mpg, depending on terrain, weather, and other conditions. Total lodging cost thus far is $424.75. Total overall cost is $668.85 giving us a per day cost of $41.80.

You might also be interested in what we are paying for gas as we travel across the state and, later, the country. Here is a spreadsheet screen shot of that information.



This averages to $3.508 per gallon.

Internet connectivity has been spotty thus far. Places that advertise WiFi often don't deliver, and other places that don't advertise it surprise us with good connectivity. So, if no new items appear for 3 days or more on the blog, please assume that we are just in an area where we can't connect. When we do finally connect, I'll probably post several items at once as I've done over the past 2 days.

From Big Spring, we visit Caprock Canyons State Park and Palo Duro State Park, both in the Texas Panhandle. When we leave Palo Duro, we head out of Texas. This is where things get interesting for us, for we are about to go to places where we have never been before or have not been but once or twice.

I hope you enjoy the trip.

Return to Spring Creek

While our house was being built last year, Donna and I spent almost 6 weeks at Spring Creek Marina and RV Park. I documented our time there in various blog entries. These are listed below for your convenience.

• Spring Creek Marina and RV Park
• Life at Spring Creek RV Park
• The Worst of Humanity
• The Good Things at Spring Creek

My opinion of the place has not changed much in the past year; if anything, I care less for the place now than before.

Unfortunately, San Angelo does not have many facilities for RVers. The state park has practically no shade and no full hookups; the KOA has little shade, and sites are very close together there. There are other RV parks, but they don't even measure up to these. So, when we returned to San Angelo to clean up some loose ends there, we really had no choice except to stay at Spring Creek.

Donna did enjoy fishing at the RV park, and she had quite a bit of luck on one day. And the park does offer grass and some shade in the form of large mesquite trees, and it does provide cable TV and full hookups. That is about where the good things end, though.

The park claims to offer WiFi. At site #44, where we spent 4 nights, we were unable to connect to the Internet. The signal simply was not strong enough. I could connect to the Spring Creek network, but it was a local connection only. I called twice about this. Basically, the last time the gentleman answering my call simply said, "There's nothing I can do." Well, he could get someone out there to fix the problem. He even suggested the problem might be mine. Funny, I was able to go to Starbucks and connect with no problem, and I was also able to park in front of the Spring Creek office and connect fine. The problem is a weak signal along the perimeters of the park, and the management is unwilling to do anything about it.

The "anything goes" attitude is still prevalent among residents at the park. You can hear noise all night long. One night, I was awakened by music and laughter at 2:17 AM, and both continued for about an hour.

I'll not stay at this place again; I'd rather be in a cramped site at the KOA where I know I'm at least getting what I pay for.

Good Eats: Hollywood and Vine, Glen Rose, Texas

Following our hike at Dinosaur Valley State Park on Saturday, August 11, our little group of explorers was pretty hungry. I had previously researched some eating places in Glen Rose, and Donna and I decided to give Hollywood and Vine a try.

Located in downtown Glen Rose about a block off the square, Hollywood and Vine offers casual dining in a remodeled boarding house built about a century ago.

I should begin by saying the restaurant has no air-conditioning. However, there is a steady movement of air through the building caused by numerous fans, and there is outside dining on the shady patio. I did not find the environment to be uncomfortable.

Donna had nachos, Nancy had a burger, and Larry and I had chicken fried steaks. My meal was good. The steak was tender with a good crust, and I was able to cut it with a fork. Gravy was tasty as well, and the beans were also good. I did not care for the mashed potatoes, though, because they included skins. This is a personal preference as I simply do not care for the texture of mashed potatoes with skins; I prefer light and fluffy mashed potatoes. Rather than beans, my brother opted for fried okra.

The best part of the meal might have been the iced-tea. It was strong and tasted as if it had been sun-brewed.

I did not try any of Donna’s nachos, but she did not care for them very much. In fact, Donna's experience at the restaurant left something to be desired. When we ordered our drinks, Donna asked, "What do you have on draft?" to which the young waitress replied, "I don't know." Donna followed this up by asking, "Do you have Bud Light?" The waitress responded that they did.

In a few minutes, she returned with our drinks, including a bottle of Bud Light. We quizzed her a bit on this, and she finally said something about the draft dispenser being broken, and we just let it go at that. She redeemed herself, though, by keeping our tea glasses full, and she ended up being a pretty attentive waitress.

Although I might not be able to get Donna to return to Hollywood and Vine, I would give it another try if we were in the neighborhood.

Dinosaur Valley SP: Hiking the White Trail

Donna and I had hiked Dinosaur Valley two times prior to our latest trip there. You can view one of these hikes on my website. For our hike on August 11, we invited my brother Larry and his fiance Nancy to join us. They arrived early that morning, and we were on the trail by 8:30.

Dinosaur Valley offers a number of hiking trails, most of them located in the eastern side of the park. Please visit the website for a map of the park. A trailhead is located near the campground, and that is where we began our hike.

After a short walk of about a third of a mile down the Cedar Brake Trail, we came to the Paluxy River crossing. On our previous hikes, Donna and I have had to either wade the river at this crossing or walk across on stepping stones. This time, this section of the river was dry, so we easily walked across.

Paluxy River crossing. You can see where the trail leads away from the river.

About a 100 yards upstream from this crossing is Track Site #4 for viewing dinosaur tracks, so you may want to take a short side trip to view these tracks.

After crossing the river, the trail officially becomes the White Trail and follows the river for the short stretch as it begins a gentle climb. After perhaps 50 yards, it turns away from the river, roughly following Denio Creek upstream, which was also dry during our hike.

At Point A on the map, the White Trail junctions and we took the southern arm. The climb at this point is perhaps the steepest of the hike, though it really is not a challenge. The trail more or less doubles back on itself, and in a short while reaches a cliff overlooking the river crossing.

Nancy and Larry on the White Trail as it climbs away from Denio Creek

Dry river crossing as seen from a cliff on the White Trail above the river.

After that point, the trail becomes rather nondescript as it wends its way through cedar dominated woodlands. There are trail markers along the trail that match the points on the map, and colored arrows on the markers indicate trail directions.

Trail marker with map at Point G. Arrows indicate this is the location where the Blue Trail intersects with the White Trail.

Nancy and Donna at Buckeye Creek crossing

Near Point F, an unmarked branch trail veers off to the left; however, we continued on the White Trail to a perimeter fence. The trail here soon became overgrown, so we back tracked to the branch trail, which Donna and I had taken before. The trail soon brought us to a grotto on the upper reaches of Buckeye Creek.

Grotto on Buckeye Creek just off the White Trail

Near this point, we began following the Blue Trail to Point L, where we then took the Yellow Trail to Point K. From here, we followed a spur to what the map indicates is a "scenic overlook". This actually may be the highest point in the park, but there are better views at other sites. A young couple were camping at the primitive camping area here, so we did not stay long.

Back at Point K, we continued following the Yellow Trail to Point E, where we joined once again with the White Trail. At this point, we became a bit confused about trails. We opted to follow the White Trail, which soon descended into Denio Creek. We followed the White Trail the remainder of our hike to the trailhead where we started earlier that morning. We moved upstream a bit to inspect the dinosaur tracks at Track Site #4, then returned to camp.

My hiking companions following the White Trail along Denio Creek

The section of the White Trail along Denio Creek provides many opportunities to view the workings of erosion.

We met several people along the trail, including at least 2 groups of mountain bikers.

Since there are so many trails that criss-cross this section of the park, it is easy to put together different hikes of varying lengths. There are also trails that lead off to the north of the park.

All in all, this is a fun place to hike.

Dinosaur Valley State Park

We stayed at Dinosaur Valley State Park just outside of Glen Rose, Texas, from August 9 - 12. We decided to stop there to break up our trip from Lake Livingston SP to San Angelo. When pulling our trailer, I don't care to drive more than 5 or 6 hours a day, so Dinosaur Valley was a good place to break up the trip. Also, since my brother lives in Ft. Worth, it was convenient for him to come down for a short visit.

The park contains 1524.72 acres along the clear running Paluxy River. The terrain is wooded-hilly- and semi-rocky and contains a variety of trees. At the time of our visit, the river was way down with limited wading and swimming opportunities.

The park is significant for the collection of dinosaur tracks found along the river bed. There are actually 4 areas along the river where dinosaur tracks have been found. These are clearly indicated on the park map. Sauropod (round) and therapod tracks (three-toed) were left in the soft mud of the shallow sea that once covered this part of Texas. The tracks are considered the finest examples of such tracks in the world, and scientists have been able to learn much about dinosaurs by studying these tracks. Signs are prevalent at all track sites and are worth the time they take to read.

Sauropod trackway, with Donna standing nearby for size comparison (track site #2)

Therapod track with 3 toes pointing right; this example is from track site #4

Paluxy River is way down at Track Site #2, where the largest collection of tracks can be found

The dinosaur tracks are not the only attraction in the park, though. The Paluxy River provides swimming in various areas, especially the Blue Hole in the western side of the park. The park also contains a number of trails for hikers and mountain bikers. There's just a lot to do in this park.

The Blue Hole; there are dinosaur tracks on a ledge just above this swimming hole

This was our first time to camp in the park. We normally try to stay in parks that provide full hookups. However, since we only planned to spend 3 nights, we did not really need full hookups since we have 40 gallon holding tanks. We stayed in site 44, and we enjoyed the site. It is right next to the playground in the campground, though, so it can get a bit noisy. We enjoy watching children play, though, so that was not a concern for us.

Our campsite, #44

Every site in the park seems to have at least some shade, and some are in full shade. Should you consider staying at the park, be forewarned that some sites have longer pads than others; some sites will not accommodate longer rigs. The park was under a burn ban while we where there, so we were not able to enjoy the stone fireplace at the back of our site.

There was not WiFi in the park, at least that we could pick up from our site. Television reception on our antennae was also a bit weak.

As with many recreational parks, there was a party element at this park. On our first night, we were awakened after midnight by loud laughing from the next door playground. Some older teens decided to use it as a meeting place, much to our dismay.

Example of many informational signs located throughout the park

But I like this park, and I would like to go back some time when there is no burn ban, when school is in session, and during the work week, probably during the fall or spring. Weekends tend to draw crowds. Allow the better part of one day to view all dinosaur track sites if you read all the literature and give the tracks a careful study.