Luxury, shorts-weather and VIEWS in Corpus Christi

The beautiful KOA (Kampgrounds of America) campground on Laguna Madre, in Corpus Christi, Texas is the top campground we have visited thus far.  Sadly, we once again arrived after sunset and had to set up in the dark; we missed a turn and had to double-back, putting us at a late arrival.  But we awoke the next day to our beautiful view of the water. In the 4 days that we were at the KOA Campground, we took advantage of the pool area on two occasions.  The pool was heated and lounge chairs were available (though these were not very comfortable).  This was our first campground where we got to wear shorts every day! The weather was sunny and warm (although a bit windy).  We did not miss the cold weather currently in NYC.

There was a convenience store located at the campground, where we were able to buy beer and wine.  They also sold frozen margaritas and jello shots (we had a few).  In addition, there was another convenience store located within walking distance.  There was also a bar located within walking distance of the campground that other reviewers had raved about, but we didn't take advantage of the bar on this trip.

  

DID we say that it was SHORTS weather?!?!

Review of KOA Campground in Corpus Christi, Texas

Corpus Christi KOA Journey opened in 2020 but is so well maintained that it feels like it is brand new.  Almost all of the sites backup to water views with large palm trees.  The campground has full hook-ups, Wi-Fi, cable, level concrete sites, and daily trash pickup.  The  playground, heated pool, and convenience store were first-rate.  In addition, the park has kayak rentals, a game room, boat slips, and a covered overwater deck; although, we did not take advantage of these amenities.  But we did take advantage of the waterside sandy beach!  The showers and laundry were so good that Pat took pictures (Tim was not thrilled to post those, LOL); however, the laundry was a little more pricey than other places.

One of our big issues with this campground is that it is not within walking distance to any restaurants.  It is our own choice to travel without a car but we spent most of our time on the KOA property.  As mentioned before, there was a convenience store (with much better prices than the KOA shop) within walking distance, and a bar that we planned to visit but never did.  The prices were our only issue with the KOA shop.  It had a lot more RV accessories and souvenirs than groceries, but when you have jello shots and frozen Margaritas, all is forgiven.

We will definitely be back to this campground again!

First Overnight Guest

Once again, we arrived at our campground, Grizzly Pines, after sunset and had to set up in the dark. We also had a unique experience when we were trying to level the RV, as the first spot we were assigned was so unlevel that the automatic leveling jacks lifted the front tires about a foot off the ground, which is a huge no-no for leveling your RV.  We had to move to a different spot, which turned out to be fortunate as we made two new friends in Kyler and Dennis, who had their RVs parked to the front and side of ours all facing into a common picnic area.  

And our Starlink dish made a friend too!

The weather was warm enough upon our arrival for our first “shorts weather” but turned cooler by the end of our stay. We arrived on a Thursday and had some rain on Friday morning, but nothing could ruin this weekend because we had our first overnight guest. 

Our very good friend, Marvin (Pat’s Best Man from our 1998 Holy Union) arrived on Friday afternoon and stayed with us through Sunday.  He was very thoughtful and brought food to cook for breakfast and assisted with the cooking.  Marvin also brought all the fixins (camping lingo) for smores, which we made over one of the park’s fire pits next to our RV on Friday night.  It was also the first time we got to cook outside on a campground grill; we had burgers on Friday night and chicken on Saturday night.  

Both nights ended with drinks and fun conversation next to the fire pit.

Review of Grizzly Pines Campground in Navasota, Texas

This was the first time during our retirement travel to camp at a gay campground.  Apparently, we booked an “off” weekend at Grizzly Pines, as the campground has themes every other weekend and we arrived on the “other” weekend.  Because it was an “off” weekend, it was very quiet, and we saw almost no one as we took walks around the campground.  

The weather also turned cool, which probably contributed to the lack of activity.  The pool looked like a great gathering spot, but was closed for the winter; however, the hot tub was open and was one of the only hot spots at the campground (pun intended). 

The campground was out in the woods, which was beautiful, but driving the narrow roads to the campground was a little intense for these inexperienced RV drivers.  Also, the campground, for some unknown reason, had dozens of speed bumps from the road to the entrance to the campground and then to the parking areas inside the campground.  Speed bumps are super annoying for any vehicle but downright destructive for an RV and its contents.  There was a lot of new construction and clearing of acreage for new sites, which was positive, but the trash cans were seldom emptied.  Given these shortcomings, we aren’t sure we will be returning to Grizzly Pines; however, the folks who run the campground are very nice and accommodating, and if you were staying in a cabin instead of driving an RV, you wouldn’t encounter the problems that we had. 

Childhood friends plus new technology in Livingston, Texas

We spent four days in Livingston, Texas at Rainbow's End RV Park.  We needed to get Pat's Texas driver's license, pick up some very large packages at our mail service, and meet-up with some family friends from Pat's childhood who are longtime full-time RVers that happened to be staying in the same park for several months.

We are members of the Escapees RV Club based in Livingston.  They provide services that establish our residency in Texas and our mail forwarding solution.  They also own a few RV parks that have substantial discounts for members.  The Escapees Mail Forwarding Service enables you to receive your mail, no matter where in North America you travel. When you subscribe, you get a unique mailing address in Texas.  When they receive mail for you, they scan your mail and give you the option of trashing it, holding it for pickup in Livingston, or forwarding it to you on the road.  We had ordered several large items delivered to our address that we needed to pick up "live" rather than paying for shipping, so we decided to stay a few days in their Livingston park.

We had planned this trip some time ago but recently learned that some of Pat's childhood family friends were staying at Rainbow's End for a few months.  Kenneth and Anita have been full-time RVing for many years and Pat often thought of stories he had heard second-hand about their lifestyle as his and Tim's RV plans began to form years ago.  Kenneth's parents and Pat's parents became the best of friends when they moved to Silsbee, Texas, the year before Pat was born.  Kenneth, and Pat's oldest brother, Robert, were classmates, teammates, and best friends throughout high school.  Pat had recently connected with Anita on Facebook and learned that they were going to cross paths.  The park even moved us to a site next door to them upon our arrival at the RV park.  Pat had not seen Kenneth and Anita in probably over 50 years!  We really grilled them for all of their wealth of RV/travel knowledge.  We came away from our visit feeling much more prepared for our travels!

Kenneth's sister, Roni, got wind of our visit so she and her husband, Fred, came over from Houston one night to join the fun.  We had connected with Roni and Fred a few times in the past when visiting our grandkids (and their parents 😉) in Houston, but it was great to get this group together to reminisce about Silsbee and our late parents; our other siblings John, Danny and Mollie REALLY missed out!

Tim was kind to sit through all the Silsbee talk so we rewarded him with Cajun food.

Fred was too and he even helped out when Kenneth was teaching us about RV maintenance.

Our Internet and TV solution

Besides the old friends, we got a new friend in Livingston, our Starlink arrived in the mail. We had planned on using hotspots from our phones and a standalone device for our streaming, TV, and Internet services; however, we found that the streaming latency began to be very annoying.  Starlink is a satellite constellation (3,000 now with 12,000 planned) providing Internet access coverage to 40 countries through a small antenna dish that is constantly searching for the nearest satellite.  We aren't crazy about the company owner, but the service is tailor made for our full-time RV lives.

"Quick" Rainbow's End RV Park Review   11/28-12/01

Rainbow's End RV Park is a quality RV park with level sites, laundry, and somewhat dated bath and shower facilities.  They have a community center with a DVD library, a (book) library, and some games.  They have activities in the community center, but we didn’t take advantage of any this stay.  It has lots of trees and feels like you are deep in the woods even though it is right off of a decent highway (some road noise accompanies that).  The Escapees RV Club Headquarters is onsite and the mail center is there.  While we were there, we took advantage of their SmartWeigh service, which details your weight distribution, gives a precise height measurement, and provides information on how much air you should keep in your tires given the weight distribution.  Our weight was good for all tires and sides! We will stay at this park often to get our mail, but we would probably choose to stay here even if that wasn't the determining factor.

Thanksgiving in Lafayette, LA

We stayed the week around Thanksgiving in Lafayette, LA, Tim's hometown.  We are going to do our first review of the Lafayette KOA Holiday plus update you on our Thanksgiving activities and all the friends & family that we got to see.  We finally got a few days of the weather that we signed-up for in retirement, clear skies and shorts/t-shirt weather.

...but did have one BIG rain storm.

After running several errands, we arrive at the campground in the dark...AGAIN.  We are still working on our schedule to get to our destination on time.  Since we don't have a car, we try to do the grocery shopping and other tasks during our relocation trips.  We have planned shorter trips in the future, so we hope to get our travel days into daylight soon!  It was not raining for setup this time and we were pretty efficient.

Review of the KOA campground in Lafayette

We had actually stayed at the Lafayette KOA one night when we moved the RV from storage in Florida to storage in Texas so were generally familiar with the layout.  Our site last time was along the east side of the large pond but this time we were on the north side which was parallel with I-10.  It was amazing how much louder the traffic noise is when you don't have the buffer of several other RVs between you and the highway.  We turned our phone white noise apps (Pat had planned to get a new battery-operated alarm clock but he added the noise machine to the features he wanted).  This campground is pretty large with 185 sites.  It has a very nice pond (almost a lake) in the center with kayaks and paddle boats available.  They even have a miniature golf course along with the other children's playground equipment.  Our site had a concrete slab to park the rig and gravel for the picnic/gathering area.  The laundry is larger than most but there is only one, so some campers have to drive to it.  They have a few "store" items in the office but not a real store.  They have propane gas available, and we filled up for the first time as we left.  We would definitely recommend this campground but suggest sites 115-124,  144-151 or 171-177 to avoid the traffic noise.

Thanksgiving Activities

We got to do lots of organizing around the RV since we were in town for a whole week.  Our first Thanksgiving traditional activity was the Camellia Crossing Gleaux Run on Wednesday night.  Before the race we got to visit with Tim's childhood friend (best man at our wedding), Steve, who was in town for his family's Thanksgiving.  Tim has retired from running this race and Pat retired from running at birth, so we staked out the post-race gathering spot with our nieces, Lexie and Cierra, and waited for the competitors.  Our nephew, Brandon, arrived first after running his personal best 5K.  He was followed by Tim's brother and sister-in-law, David and Jessica, and Tim's sister and her best friend, Christine and Adam.  We ate and drank until the restaurant closed and even ran into our friends Lindsey and John out with their family celebrating Lindsey's 40th birthday.

On Thursday, in addition to the racers, a few more family members were at Tim's mom, Sugie's, house including Sugie's brother (Uncle Bobby), more of Tim's siblings (Cindy & Brian), lots more cousins and spouses (Toby, Barry, Brandi, Joel, Blaine), our nephew, Josh, plus our great-niece, Hope.  The menu included lots of roasted and fried turkeys, ham, roast beef, rice dressing, cornbread dressing, mac & cheese, cranberry sauce, corn, green bean casserole, rolls and a bunch of pies.

Sugie had all five of her children there!

Setting Up Our Home

On Friday, we went to our storage unit in Baton Rouge to pick up things that we moved in the moving van that were RV useful and store a few things we forgot in the van and had to pack in our luggage for our "last" flight from NYC.  It was a long exhausting day and Tim was sure that we would never be able to fit all these items in the RV comfortably.  The RV felt a lot more like home once we got these items in place.

We went to Sugie's for leftovers every night and even have some turkey in the freezer now.  It was great to see all of the family, we are still overwhelmed with all the organizing/packing but are starting to feel the transition from assembly/organization to actually living in the Windsport.

The Journey Begins

We are on the road and living in our motorhome (Tim prefers “RV”)!  Pat and Tim differ on the actual start date of our full time RV travel. Pat’s position is that we are visiting family for the holidays until 1/1/2023 when we will start our adventures in Florida.  Tim’s position is that we have been in the RV full time since 11/18/2022 when we spent our first night in the Windsport as full-timers.

We plan to do reviews of campgrounds, national/state parks, historic sites (especially state capitols and presidential libraries) as we travel; and talk about the people we see and spend time with along the way.  We started this blog so that family and friends who wanted to could follow our adventures (without inundating Facebook daily for friends who just want the highlights).

 

Pre-RV

 

We had taken many tent camping vacations to national parks when our three sons were kids.  We really liked to drive.  We even had season tickets to LSU football games when we lived in Carrollton, Texas; a 14-hour, 900-mile roundtrip.  So, before we knew it, we were seriously considering full-time RVing in our retirement. This set Pat on one of his obsessive planning furies to create a path to see all 50 states in their optimal weather. We went to an RV show on September 14, 2018; and picked out all of our favorite features in an RV, which narrowed down the list of models we were interested in to about six.

 

Tim retired on February 28, 2021.  In early 2022, with Pat set to retire in November, we began to track our favorite models’ selling prices.  Others had advised us to buy a used model, about 3-5 years old with less that 20K miles, because people buy new models and then sell them within about three months because they realize that RVing is not for them.  Sadly, even for used models, prices skyrocketed during the pandemic; but as fall 2022 approached, prices were starting to look a little better.  Suddenly, in August 2022, there was a listing for a 2022 Thor Windsport at an RV Dealership in Sanford, Florida, which met nearly everything on our wish list.  We flew to Florida, liked what we saw, and had it inspected.  There were a few issues that needed to be fixed, so we left it at the dealership and returned to pick it up Labor Day weekend 2022.  We spent the weekend in the RV and then put it in storage in Wildwood, Florida, for six weeks.  We returned to pick it up the week before Halloween 2022, and drove it to Houston, Texas, stopping in Ponce de Leon, Florida, and Lafayette, Louisiana, along the way.  There the RV remained until after Pat’s retirement. 

 

The Move from Apartment Life to RV Life

 

Many people have asked us how we moved from living in a Brooklyn apartment to living in the RV.  The transition began with deciding what furniture and other belongings we wanted to keep and what we would do with everything else.  We rented a moving truck from Budget Truck Rental and filled it with the things we would keep; some of which was ultimately going to the RV and some of which was going into our storage unit in Baton Rouge.  Tim drove the moving truck from Brooklyn to Lafayette, Louisiana, on November 2-4, stopping along the way in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

 

Pat’s last day of work was November 16, 2022, and the next day we flew to Houston to begin our journey.

 

Sugar Land, Texas (November 18)

 

Our first full-time campground was the Sugar Land RV Park. But it is really hard to review them since it rained almost the entire time we were there.  We used none of their facilities, we didn’t even go to office to check-in.  We had to set up the RV in the rain (put down the jacks; plug into electricity, water, and sewer; and extend the slide).  We then worried the entire time that we would get stuck in the mud or that we would become unlevel and unable to pull in the slide.  When we were ready to leave, we had to tear down (pull in the slide; unplug from electricity and water; dump the sewer; and pull up the jacks) in the cold and rain (the temperature stayed in the forties almost the entire time). 

 

The highlight of the trip was spending time with our son Tod, his wife, Leah, and our grandchildren, Ella and Alex.  It was Alex’s first birthday, and he was loving the attention.  We also got to spend some time with our son, Kevin, on this trip, since he was also at Alex’s birthday party.

 

On to our next stop on November 21^st, hint it’s a week in Tim’s hometown for Thanksgiving with the Blanchard family!

Introduction to BLAMO!

 

What is this? This is a blog about the full-time RV travels of Pat and Tim

What does BLAMO mean? BLAMO is a combination of the first letters in each of our last names

When do you begin? Our official full-time "traveling" start date will be January 1, 2023