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There is snow in California's Sierra Range and to a lesser extent the San Gabriel's of Southern California. But that is not the Christmas Lynda and I were looking for (one with trees and lights and horse drawn sleighs). So we decided to head east and then north in search of the perfect place to experience Christmas: Branson, MO.
From Palm Springs it is 1413 miles to our designated resting
place in Gordonville, Texas (Thousand Trails – Lake Texoma). There are few Thousand Trails, Coast To Coast or other
membership parks along the way, so we made this trip without too many extended
stays. Nevertheless, we tried, when
possible to stick with our general rule of around 200 miles in a day of
driving, a bit more if it is all freeways.
Our first stop was Colorado River Adventures’ Yuma Lakes RV
Park. This time of the year (late November), the
park serves its famous meals and is a pleasant place to stop. The people are friendly and we are
familiar with the park (it still gets around a 7 out of 10 on our 10 point
scale). The park is not
particularly convenient to Yuma, nor was it terribly quiet this time … the park
is in a flight path for teaching touch and go’s … at all hours of the day and
night. We stayed two days here so
we could visit Los Algodones, Mexico, where we stocked up on antibiotics and
enjoy a margarita at Paraiso, an expat favorite.
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| We enjoy a margarita |
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| A dancer entertains us |
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| The tropical ambiance |
From Yuma we ran over to Casa Grande and stayed at the
Escapees co-op – Rover’s Roost.
This is a very nice park with exceptionally nice people. It is a bit out of town, but is fairly
quiet (railroad in the distance) and easy to get into and out of… It comes with
a large site and 50-amp service.
(We give this park a solid 8).
It is very inexpensive for Escapee members ($16.15). On the downside, you are staying in
someone’s purchased site, so they don’t take reservations but will put you up
if there is room available … they can usually tell if you call the day of your
arrival … of course, if they don’t
have room they do have overflow parking for one night at $5 per night.
Casa Grande was a one-night stay and we were off to
Benson. We stayed at Valley Vista
RV Park (Coast to Coast). This is
an Encore park and looks it … dated and run down with small sites. We paid an extra $2 per night for
50-amp and a $3 per night “resort” fee.
This brought our total with the $10 C2C fee to $15 per night. There was unrelenting train noise
complete with whistles and horns.
While we were there we visited the Escapees Co-op park. It is a really beautiful park and we
wished we had stayed there (we didn’t because, like all of the Escapees, they
don’t take reservations … if any of
you are Escapees, please encourage these parks to begin to take reservations …
even if it is only a week in advance).
We stayed in Benson for two days so we could visit Tombstone, Az.
From Benson the accommodations and attractions become thin
indeed! We stopped for a night at
an Escapees Rainbow Park – Dream Catchers RV – in Deming , NM. This park is extremely clean, has very
friendly staff, and excellent Wifi
and TV reception. The problem is …
there is not much going on in Deming.
We have stayed in this park before and always enjoy our stay ($14 +
electric). We highly recommend the
park and would rate it as an 8 or 9 (not many amenities, just a really clean
nice park close to the highway).
Another single day trip brought us to Van Horn, Texas –
Mountain View RV Park ($30 with the Good Sam Discount). This is a very nice open park with new
ownership. We had a nice
pull-through site. It is close to
the highway, so expect some highway noise (when trucks run too far to the side
and go over the highway ribbing on the shoulder) but we would stay again. Even the proprietor admitted that there
wasn’t much to see or do in Van Horn … so we were off again the next morning.
We pulled into Big Spring, Texas around 3 p.m. in the
afternoon. When you get off the
highway, the exit speed is 15 mph and is very short. Slow down to at least that or less if possible … the exit
ends in a deep curve that makes you feel like you will roll your rig … we
didn’t … thankfully … but the heart definitely pumped a few extra times. The Park we stayed in was The Whip In
RV Park. The people are very nice
and friendly. The park is a bit
dated, but it is obvious that the new proprietor has worked hard to make
improvements. He led us to a nice
pull-through with 50-amp service and recommended we eat at the Cowboy Steak
House. It turned out to be an
excellent recommendation. We had
the sirloins and had plenty to take home.
Nothing fancy, just good old fashioned food for a decent price. We had been having some problems with
one of our jacks retracting each morning, so decided to get out early and
retract, then reset, then retract again (recommended in our service book). While the jack worked … we were so
thrilled that we ran off without gathering up our jack pads (darn … another
expense down the road).
One more day of driving brought us to beautiful downtown
Mingus, Texas (Cactus Rose RV Park).
This is a very friendly park run by a family. The park has maybe 10 sites, but we had a nice pull through
right by the exit. There is not
much to do in Mingus so we turned in early.
A final day of driving brought us to Thousand Trails – Lake
Texoma in Gordonville, Texas.
This
north Texas park is off the beaten path, and is very quiet this time of
year.
We lucked into a nice 50-amp
site (the majority are 30-amp).
We
had excellent satellitle reception and good Verizon Wifi.
We like this park, although the
management is selling way too many annual sites.
This park is on the cusp.
With a continued policy of overselling annual sites, this
park will soon lose its charm and become a really bad trailer park!
We caught our breath at Lake Texoma, staying for ten days before starting north in mid December and arrived in Grove, Oklahoma at Bears Den RV Park. This is a really nice park, but was all but deserted by mid December. The weather is beginning to get cold at night (high twenties and low thirties) so we bought an electric heated fresh water hose. The hose works great and keeps itself at 45 degrees even in the most extreme temperatures ... of course the problem is that you are now obligated to wrap and keep the park's connection from freezing as well, if you don't want to constantly hook and unhook your hose. We developed a big insulated sock that when placed over the park's faucet will keep it from freezing down to the mid teens. Also purchased a ceramic heater for the compartments that will keep them around 45 degrees ... hopefully we are ready for the jump to Branson.
One final hop takes us into Branson. We drove over to Springfield and then down the thirty miles to Branson. The weather is crisp, but dry ... it is December 20th. On the way to Branson are a series of long up and down hills that are made to challenge your proficiency as a driver. I crest one hill and am starting down another when the "Stop Engine!" warning light comes on. I pull over to the side of the highway and before I can turn the engine off, the warning light goes out. This happens several more times before finally arriving in Branson. We post the problem on iRV2 and find out that on our 2007 Winnebago Tour that if the coolant level gets even slightly low the Stop Engine warning will come on. Before leaving Branson we have Branson Motor Coach add coolant and tighten all the hose clamps that caused the coolant to leak. They do a nice job for a reasonable price.
We are now ready to concentrate on Christmas. We put a wreath and garland on the front of the coach and decorate our Christmas tree! Lynda gets on line to make a few reservations for shows to get us in the Christmas spirit. Our oldest son (spending Christmas in Saltzburg, Austria) sends us tickets to the Dixie Jamboree Christmas show which we thoroughly enjoy (Thanks Jen and Jason!). We are surprised to find out that we need to see what we want before December 30. On that day, Branson rolls up the sidewalks and closes until mid March (there are no shows in January!). We manage to book a murder mystery theater on December 26th (we don't recommend this one) and the Red Neck Tenors on the 29th (these guys are really great ... all opera singers with excellent voices and a great sense of humor). The highlight of our trip is a visit to Silver Dollar City. They go all out for Christmas and we visit on the 23rd. They have over a million lights, and everything is decorated beautifully. Here are a few pictures.
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| Little Bears made by Kim's Mom sit at the Front of the Coach |
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| The Coach in its Christmas Finery |
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| Our Stockings hung with care! |
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| St. Nicholas apparently was here! |
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| Beautiful Belgium at Dixie Stampede |
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| Jason & Jen went all out ... our event even included the boot cups |
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| Wreath in the lobby of the Dixie Stampede ... pictures were not allowed inside |
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| The costume looked magnificent under blacklight during show |
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| One of the shops at Silver Dollar City |
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| Reindeer and Sleigh |
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| Silver Dollar City Parade |
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| Some of the million lights at Silver Dollar City |
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| All of these trees are lighted ... my flash washed out their lights. |
On Christmas Eve it snows ... just like in the movies! It is great. Terrific lights at Silver Dollar City, and snow on Christmas Eve!. Of course with a bit of snow also comes continued cold. The day time temperatures hover in the low thirties and drops to as low as 14 degrees at night. The cold begins to dampen our spirits and by January 3 we are more than ready to head south. We are lucky and leave on a day with dry roads. We were originally planning on going south through Arkansas, but the weather there is much worse than in Branson (Little Rock got 14 inches of snow and the power was out in some places for as long as a week). We head north to Springfield (stopping at Lamberts for lunch and some of their 'throwed rolls') and then down to Muskogee for the night before slipping back into Texas the following day.
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| Outside of our Coach |
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| The car gets a nice dusting |
We are looking forward to a great 2013 and wish you and yours a Happy New Year!
Until next time … keep doing what you love!
