We made it down to McKinney Falls again, which is half an hour away but always booked solid. We chose to go in on a Sunday, and leave on Wednesday, since it is actually possible to reserve a site during the week with little notice.
It’s a great little park, with several miles of hiking trails, and due to the proximity to us, is a convenient get-away trip. Before leaving, I pulled the recliners out of the back of the living room that we never use, and used that space to store Kelly’s bike/my trike.
There are anchor points in the carpet to hold the recliners in place while moving, so I used those and some bungees to hold the bikes still in transit.
The weather was somewhat cold and wet – staying in the 40s to 50s, and raining most of the time. I have no complaints, as that made for perfect running weather. I only took the trike out for about ten miles on the trip, but ran over 10K on Monday and another 10K on Tuesday.
We’ve been to Jim Hogg Park a number of times, in fact, it’s where we tore the roof of our RV open on a low hanging tree branch a couple years ago, and I believe that was the last time we went. Jim Hogg Park is on Lake Georgetown, and is a Army COE park. It is part of a cluster of COE parks around the lake, including Cedar Breaks Park, which is where we launched the boat for the first two outings. Jim Hogg Park has more camping accommodations, including some double sites, one of which (Site S008) we booked one for a long 07/04 holiday weekend. The double sites with screen shelters run $40/night.
It has a nice cabin on the door side of the RV that is screened in with a ceiling fan and light, and generous parking pad that is large enough to fit our truck and RV on at least twice. The boat ramp is decent (three lanes, if I remember correctly) but the docks are almost entirely out of the water right now, with only one partially submerged and barely enough to be usable. It’s the furthest dock from the ramp, and a decently long walk between them. We launched the boat and twice on our trip, and probably spent 8-10 hours total on the water with Maggie and Violet (Max is too old to sit in a hot boat and doesn’t like getting in the water, so he stayed in the A/C in the RV).
We spent quite a bit of time anchored in a little cove we found playing fetch with the dogs. Violet loves jumping off the boat and fetching things, with a huge boost in confidence provided by her life jacket. Maggie, the one who typically loves water, is afraid to jump off the boat or get back in, so she supervises. I don’t have a photo on my phone of either of them in the water, but here is one of Kelly in the water and Violet giving her a toy to throw.
Because Maggie is so afraid of diving in the water and getting back in the boat, but loves being in the water, and because we got so scratched up getting Violet in and out, we spent quite a bit of time over the weekend looking for a better way. There are a handful of products on the market – ladder attachments that act as stairs, attachments that act as platforms, DIY attempts that are either bulky and difficult to store or don’t look inherently stable enough to really consider (or both), and ultimately we decided on one of the more popular commercial solutions. The one semi-viable DIY solution I considered at length is heavy rubber matting supported by pool noodles, but ultimately storage and stability, like most other DIY solutions, caused me to eliminate it. The one we ended up ordering is unfortunately expensive, but in-line with most of the other premium solutions, at about $400. As I’ve found with most things (B)reak (O)ut (A)nother (T)housand related, it seems like a lot of money for what it is, and I still have a little bit of sticker shock.
It’s a free-floating ramp that you tie to the boat and doesn’t depend on the boat for stability, gives them a place to rest without actually having to get into the boat, and is compact enough to store without getting in the way when not in use. We can use the the same pump that we have for airing up the inflatable rafts and tubes to air it up, so doesn’t require any additional pumps to be stored on the boat. I also purchased two dock cleats to mount on the platform opposite the boat ladder, and some 3/8″ double-braided marine rope, to attach it with.
Regarding the boat itself, the outdrive has a couple issues I need to address, most notably a whine which I believe to be a shimming/ backlash issue, and some possible water intrusion – there was some foaming of the oil when I checked the dipstick on Saturday morning, but not enough to worry me, at least at that time. I bought a gauge and a .004 shim to try and fix the whine, but without measuring, the shim I ordered was just a guess. I swapped out the stainless 15×15 prop for a cheap aluminum 14.5×17 last Thursday, which the boat seems to like better.
During the sales that were going on for Independence Day, I grabbed a new pair of Tempress Elite seats, Springfield Camlock Slides, and folding cupholders to put in the above photo where old ones were mounted on either side of the engine box. I used vinyl spray paint – which you can see in the photo – to refresh the vinyl upholstery in the boat and avoid spending $1000 for now on labor and material. For $50, I’m thoroughly impressed in how easy it was to apply and how well it seems to be holding up to water, sunscreen, cleaners, and friction incurred during use.
We spent a few days at Live Oak Ridge COA and had a wonderful time. It’s located on Lake Belton, about an hour north of here, so is easy to access for a weekend outing. We chose campsite 1, which ended up being perfect. It was easy to get into, had a great view of the lake, and a trail leading down to the waterfront. Even though the park was full, the waterfront below our site had very little traffic and we had it to ourselves the majority of the trip. The site itself had a very nice, crushed granite pit with a concrete slab in it for the firepit and ground grill, a second grill/smoker up on a stand, and a very large covered picnic table. We were able to set up our new Coleman canopy on the gravel and have plenty of room to move around. It’s definitely a place and site we will be returning to.
Just prior to leaving on this trip, I diagnosed my passenger battery as having failed and replaced both of the OE batteries on my truck with Northstar AGMs. The OE batteries should be covered under warranty, but the two Chevrolet dealers I have contacted about having them replaced have failed to call me back, even after two weeks of waiting. I’m going to have to just take them in and annoy them until I get replacements, it seems. I’d like to put them in the RV to expand the battery array for dry camping. Regarding the AGMs, they’re a much better choice for my power load and driving habits, and should last three times as long as the wet cell batteries that failed (first one dropped to ~6V with a 100A load, second drops to ~10V and which is pretty much failed; these left me stranded twice before I got around to testing and replacing them).
I just renewed the registration on both the truck and RV and am considering filing for Amateur Radio plates. They cost nothing, but will have my radio callsign on them, and you can use the same plate number on up to five or six vehicles (I don’t remember which) in the state of Texas. That means a single, easy to remember plate number for both the truck and RV that would ease the check-in process at most parks that require both.
We finally made it out to McKinney Falls State Park this week – arriving last Sunday and staying until this morning. It’s consistently booked well in advance, probably due to the proximity to Austin, and we’ve never been able to arrange a trip there at a time that worked for us. We decided to spend a week there, arriving the day most people leave and leaving the day most people arrive, in order to work around the booking issues. Still, the park was surprisingly busy for a Sunday-Friday stay.
I didn’t get a great photo of our site, but snapped this one of the rig in place. When we arrived they wanted to put is in a pull through site due to the size of the rig (most check-in people seem to ask the length, and upon hearing 40′, assume I won’t be able to back it), but they gave us a couple alternate sites to choose from if it wasn’t free yet (we arrived slightly before checkout times were over). We ended up skipping over the pull through site because someone was parked in it (we found someone wasn’t even in it, just using it for parking their DRW truck (rude!)) and it worked out great, because the first alternate was a back in site that was easy enough to get into and was much more private. We didn’t have any neighbors on the door side of the trailer, and for the majority of the stay, the site on the street side was empty. There were no neighbors behind us, instead, there was a trail through the brush that led to the Onion Creek trail. When we go again, we’re going to ask for this site, which was #17. We were able to book another stay for Kelly and her friend, Mandy, in September for a girl’s trip.
Parked at the site.
Map of the park
The creek running through the park. There are several hiking trails which you can use to get to it.
Kelly at the Rock Shelter – a natural structure of overhanging rock that comes out about 15′, and is probably 75′ long.
Another view of the rock shelter.
Interesting enough, the roof of that is seemingly covered with clusters of spiders. I wonder how many people notice.
Kelly at the upper falls.
Maggie really wanted to play fetch with this drift wood she found…
The terrain and a smooth portion of the lower falls.
The trip turned out great and, being only a half hour away, McKinney Falls State Park is definitely a place we’ll frequently return to.
We wanted to spend Dec 26 – Jan 2 out in nature, but waited too late to find a site. Our top choices were Big Bend National Park, followed by the State Park and Maverick Ranch out there; if those weren’t available we were going to hike up to Palo Duro Canyon State Park or go out to Garner State Park. But alas, none of them had any availability when we tried to book them at the end of November. We had waited too long.
Changing directions, we found a “luxury” park outside of Houston called the San Jacinto Riverfront RV Resort. It advertised being on a river, with hot tubs at each of the individual “Deluxe Riverview With Spa” sites. They had one of those sites left, so we booked it and headed there the day after Christmas.
It is a very large park with approximately three hundred sites, and though I don’t think it is planned, the nicest rigs tend to be the ones nearest the river. They supposedly have strict requirements for newer and nicer rigs only, but outside of the few rows nearest the river, we saw several poorly maintained trailers, some in considerable states of disrepair. We didn’t speak to everyone in the park, but didn’t see any rigs coming or going, and the few people we did speak to assumed that we moving in long-term. It didn’t feel like a destination park and though it is nice to have the hot tub and river view, we probably won’t go back. It has the distinct feel of a residence park that just happens to accept destination travelers.
The park was nicely landscaped, with a lot of palm trees and nice grasses for dogs, though we didn’t see any off-leash areas, like we’ve seen at other similar area parks such as the Rayford Crossing RV Resort. It has some very neat colorful cabins near the water, and some smaller cabins in a tiny house like community on the other side. Laundry facilities and bathrooms were clean, but nothing to write home about. The pool was closed, even though it was plenty warm to swim this December, but looked beautiful and we would have loved to see it open. The gym facility needs a lot of updating: it consists of a treadmill and an elliptical (if I recall correctly) that worked fine and some old, mismatched consumer grade weights. They had a Bowflex that had worn out bars, at 210# it felt like 80#. The one redeeming piece of equipment was a plate loaded weight machine with a nice dip station in the corner. If they’re not going to spend $10K for properly functioning commercial gym equipment, I’d almost rather them not have a gym at all. The store had a basic selection of necessities, but there is a full grocer about a mile down the street that we opted to go to when we needed odds and ends.
As for the site we rented, it was nice. It was probably the widest pad we’ve ever had; it consisted of a gazebo with hot tub, plenty of space for the RV and the truck to sit side by side. The roadside of the trailer was facing the river, so we didn’t benefit from the river view unless we were in the hot tub. The hot tub was nice, and rather than run treatments they seem to flush water out between guests. Unfortunately that means that after a few days the hot water of the tub under the insulated cap got a little stale, and we requested that they treat or replace the water in it. They replaced the water and, the day we left, the issue was back. We had a bright light next to the hot tub that I can’t decide if it was nice to have, or annoying. It was almost blinding when sitting at the wrong angle in the hot tub, but it was also nice to have the light. This is nitpicking, but I’d rather have rope lights on the gazebo and that the light moved to the other side of the roadway.
The river itself has a boat launch and nice 150′ fishing pier. We saw a lot of people fishing off of it, but didn’t partake ourselves. The river appears to be a shipping channel with several barges across the way and tugboats moving them in and out of dock. While they were far enough away that the noise wasn’t disturbing, it was interesting to watch, and a telltale sign of the condition of the water. Additionally, several signs announced the swimming in the river was prohibited. There were fireworks on New Years, on both sides of the river and off some of the barges. While it wasn’t a focused, collaborated show, it was a great view for bringing in the new year.
Overall, it was a decent park but after discussing it, we’re unlikely to go back. Even given the complaints we mentioned above, we’d probably give it four out of five stars if not for the price. We can mostly overlook the older trailers and the “permanent” resident nature of the park. But $379 for the week ($359+$20 extra for the third dog, which is ridiculous since the third dog doesn’t require anything additional from them) it is simply too expensive to overlook the fact that the park is full of poorly maintained rigs and is more mobile-home community than destination resort. Three out of five stars.
Until this resort, we’ve rarely used our washer/dryer combo. But after finding that air drying our bathing suits on the shower door was insufficient, we took to washing or at least drying our bathing suits daily in the unit. We have the Level-Up hydraulic system on our RV, and have been happy to date with the amount of motion that the RV has. I have looked into king pin tripods and JT Strongarm stabilizers, but the tripods have mixed reviews and the JT Strongarms don’t work with our hydraulic rams, and it just wasn’t that important to us. The laundry machine introduces a lot of motion though, and if we start using it with any consistency, as I think we will after getting more familiar with it, we definitely want something more. So I found a system similar to the JT Strongarms, named Steadyfast that does work with the rams. They were running a good deal for new years so I ordered the set. I haven’t installed it yet, but will detail the install in a blog post in a couple weeks. I doubt I’ll get around to installing them until the 20th.
We arrived at the Canyon of the Eagles on Monday, Labor Day, after most people had long cleared out. The signs coming into the park didn’t make it exactly clear where to check in, though I figured the one labeled “Resort Area” probably pointed to the front office. Rather than risk getting the rig into a place where it would be difficult to get out of, I decided to skip that area and proceed until I found a sign pointing to the RV area. Since we didn’t know our site number, I called the front office and obtained our number, then proceeded to drop the trailer off and set up before heading back up to the resort area to complete the registration. Registration was quick and the host was both nice and informative.
The RV park only contained four RVs when we arrived yesterday, and one of them left today. No more have arrived so there are only four rigs in the park, including us. One of them doesn’t look like it has anyone staying in it. It is a newer Montana 5er, so it isn’t an eyesore, but the slides are all in and there hasn’t been a vehicle parked around it that we’ve seen. The other two appear to be full timers, which I didn’t know they allowed here. They have the more permanent accommodations you’re used to seeing with people who set up shop for a while. While I love parks with trees, they need to be trimmed back quite a bit, as you can’t drive a 12’6″ or taller rig through here without scraping the roof, and especially not one over 13’4″ like ours. Fortunately we have the FlexArmor roof so I don’t have to worry too much about it.
We took a couple mile hike after we got back from registration, on mostly well maintained trails with good trail markers and a nice map that we obtained at the main office. We didn’t see much wildlife on our hike, during the heat of the day, but saw some massive mounds of ants that we had to leave the trail to stay clear of. Because of the heat we cut the hike short and headed back to the rig.
About an hour before dark, we took a little driving tour, which lead us down a gravel road past a closed and locked gate for the Eagle Eye Observatory. We turned around at the end of the dead-end road and on the way back noticed that the gate had been opened. Curious, we drove on down to the observatory. We met a guy down there that was just opening up the observatory for the night, and since we were the only ones there for quite a while, we spent an hour or more conversing personally about the stars and planets. He showed us the two telescopes they have: a 12.5″ Dobsonian and a 16″ Cassegrain, as well as his personal 11″ Cassegrain that is set up for astro-photography. After it got a little darker, he focused on the moon, Mars, and Saturn, and pulled up several interesting short videos about the scale of the stars and the known universe. We used a star map to find some stars and when a few other people began to trickle in used a laser pointer to point out all the Zodiac constellations we could see. We had to leave since we weren’t expecting to stay as long as we did and needed to return to the dogs, but will be going back when he opens up for Thursday and Friday nights. A while ago I did a lot of research and nearly bought an 8″ Celestron Cassegrain to deep dive into the hobby, but realized it’s one of those that turns into a time sink and money pit very quickly; I have enough of those already (though astronomy may still make the list).
This evening we drove around the camp, taking all the campsite access roads, looking for a good place to observe the sunset. We saw a lot of wildlife and took several pictures, and are posting a few of the better ones here.
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This resort is really nice. It has a nice restaurant, gift shop, cabins, and some beautiful views. However, they used to offer Kayak and SUP rentals, and still advertise such on their site, but no longer do, and the trees in the RV area are in desperate need of trimming, and for those two things I would have to take off a star if rating from one to five. It is a solid four with all things considered.
