Where we've been, where we are, or Campground Reviews, sort of

We’ve been on the road for two weeks now, sort of ambling toward southeastern Arizona and the opportunity to annoy the Younger Daughter. We had more or less planned to be there by February 1, but it’s looking like that timetable might get pushed back by a few days. The Guppy is currently suffering from a glitch in the fuel line. At the moment we’re mooch docking in Brownwood, Texas, while the S.O. and Billy Cook (aka BBC) work on replacing various pieces parts. They thought they solved the problem by replacing a fuel filter, Guppy fine ran for 36 miles. Managed to get it started and limped back to Brownwood. It died again after a little over 20 miles. Restarted, and now we’re back where they did the first attempt at a fix.

The current diagnosis is a dying fuel pump. A new one has been purchased, but the weather turned to what might be termed shit: dramatic thunderstorms and heavy rain during Monday night, mud and sopping wet grass and a bitterly cold wind Tuesday. Not much mechanicking got done. Today’s supposed to be better. One can hope.

It would, incidentally, be easy to just sit here for awhile if we didn’t have a strong reason to get to Arizona soon. One of Billy’s friends allowed us to park the Guppy in her yard, we have electricity, and we have access to her house for replenishing water, taking showers, and doing laundry. She has been remarkably generous to people who were complete strangers. Best of all, there is no snow on the ground. I even dug out the sandals and wore them for a day or two. 

Then again, Billy has also been generous with his time and expertise. He was a professional mechanic and knows more than the S.O. about vehicles, but he’s also older than us, retired, and could easily have said he wasn’t up to doing anything hands-on. But as usual I’m starting off with a long digression. The title implies I was going to talk about the stops we’ve made along the way and not just the Guppy’s current woes.

This is a handicapped site so has more space next to it than the regular spots.

We hit the road Tuesday afternoon, January 14. It was a later start than we planned to make. Between a late morning dental appointment and the inability to load anything perishable until the last minute, it was after 2 p.m. before the Guppy was rolling south. Our first night was in a motel in Wisconsin. We had no desire to Wally dock when the interior of the Guppy was still similar to a refrigerator. We just kept our fingers crossed that it did not get cold enough in the Guppy for the canned goods we loaded to freeze. They didn’t.

In researching our possible route, I discovered the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Illinois, has a campground that is open year round. During warmer months the campsites – 300 or so of them – are full hookups. November through March there’s electricity, access to a heated showerhouse, and a dump station. We wouldn’t need the later but power and a place to bathe sounded good. We planned to stop there for two nights. That would give me time to organize some of the chaos in the Guppy, get things that just got sort of tossed in at the last minute stashed more neatly, and also allow us to play tourist, which we did. Woke up on Friday to freezing rain so decided to sit for a day, which gave us more time for organizing stuff in the Guppy.

Each of those posts is the hook-up for a camp site. They're on both sides of that guard rail so the spacing isn't quite as tight as it looks. Still tight, but at least you'd be able to open side doors. 

The Illinois State Fairgrounds campground is a good example of the loose way the term “campground” gets tossed around. It’s more like a set of parking lots with utilities provided. There are about 300 sites, but the majority are in flat paved parking lots with the sites so close together that in the summer when it’s busy it must look like an RV dealer’s lot. There are tent camping sites on grass with shade from mature trees, but not many of them. It looked like there might also be some RV sites on grass, but again, not many. Most people who stop at the Fairgrounds campground are going to be backing their rig into a parking space in a lot.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. It worked fine for us. It was actually a great place to stop at the start of our trip, just like it would be at the end. If a person just needs a safe, clean place for a night or two, it’s great. The showerhouse is clean, the fairgrounds overall are well maintained and secure. The grounds are fenced with access through just one gate at night and there are security patrols. It’s also quiet and easy to get to from I-55. If a person is interested in Lincoln sites, it’s not far from the cemetery where Abe is buried and it’s an easy drive into downtown Springfield to visit Lincoln Home National Historic Site and the Abraham Lincoln Library. Best of all, during the off season it’s cheap: $15 per night. It’s pricier in warmer months, but they do veterans and seniors discounts. There is also decent wifi, which seems to be a must for a lot of people these days.

Our next stop was at the Almost Home RV Park in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. I had found a couple of state parks close to US-67 that sounded interesting, but high water levels made us re-think that option. It seemed like once we dropped down into the five rivers area and saw that what was supposedly the Current River was looking a whole lot more like a lake (definitely way over its banks) we started thinking that maybe, just maybe, the campgrounds we’d considered cwould be a wee bit damp. Almost Home was in a good location, promised full hookups, and had the added bonus of a laundry room. When the S.O. spotted the sign, we pulled in.

There was no one around, so we called the posted number at the information kiosk. Turned out the owner was in Missouri at an auction. He told us to pick a site and he’d collect a payment in the morning. So we did. Almost Home is a small RV park and is probably an older one. It is clean, though, the wifi  was decent, the laundry room and shower house were fine, and there’s a play area for kids. Some sites are pull-throughs. Because the Guppy is a smallish motorhome, we did a back in. It seemed a little bleak in January, but I think it would be quite pleasant once the pecans leaf out. Most of the sites are shaded, or would be once there are leaves on the trees. We were close to the highway so did hear truck traffic, but that’s true of any RV park that’s close to a busy road.

As far as cost, it falls right in line with the typical private RV park that provides FHUs and wifi: it was $35 per night if you pay cash, slightly more if you use plastic (they tack on the fee Square charges them). I had no complaints; we’d stay there again. 

Our stop on Monday was our first on this trip at a federal campground, Beaver Dam in the Caney Lakes Recreation Area on the Kisatchie National Forest. I can say without hesitation it is the nicest national forest campground I've ever seen. We've stayed at some good ones, but this one hits all the high points. The individual campsites are big, none are in a bad location, the campground is clean and well maintained. The picnic tables had been replaced fairly recently (they look close to new), the showerhouse is spartan but clean, ditto the restrooms. There 27 sites with water and electricity, and the campground has a dump station so you can empty your wastewater tanks when you leave. I was regretting the decision to make it a just one night stop. I could see staying for the full 14 days you're allowed. 

Site was really deep. We could have parked the largest Class A easily. 

Like many federal campgrounds, sites are reservable through recreation.gov. This particular campground has a limited number of first come, first served sites in addition to the reservable. We did not have a reservation, but I had checked the website and saw that things were very slow in January. At a busier time of the year, I would have made a reservation rather than take a chance on doing a successful walk-in.

The itinerary put us in Waco, Texas, next. We planned to visit Yellowdog Grannie, do lunch and get caught up on what's been happening with her, and also take some time to play tourist in Waco. I wanted to visit Waco Mammoth National Monument, one of the newer parks in the National Park system. We hoped to stay at the same Corps of Engineers campground we'd stayed at before, but when we got to it the campground was closed. It is apparently still repairing flood damage from last year. That kind of threw us for a loop. 

View from a campsite at Beaver Dam

There was a private campground and marina nearby on Waco Lake so we went to check it out. One problem: no place labeled "Office" or directions on finding it, and when we called the number posted on a small sign the call went to voice mail. We drove around, discovered the RV area looked horrible, very raw and new with lots of loose gravel and no shade whatsoever -- the place is going to be hell in another month or two when the sun starts beating down on whoever is parked there, and no signage telling people where to find anyone in charge. So we did a Google search and found information for an RV park north of Waco. It looked pretty good on the web site.

Unfortunately, it apparently not being our day, it got dark before we got very far up I-35. We got far enough north that the S.O. became concerned we'd missed the exit. We doubled back, and then saw a sign for Waco North RV Resort. We figured that was it. Pulled in, discovered the office was closed already but there was a number up. Called it, asked about a site for two nights, and was told what might be open. The woman on the phone said we could just come to the office in the morning and also told me how to find the wi-fi. 

The Waco site was a pull-through but very narrow and short.

We found a site that looked okay, well removed from the interstate, so figured it would be fine for two nights. The park didn't look like what I'd seen on the website, but websites get creative with photos all the time. It was a full hookup park, which was nice. And the wi-fi worked, although it was an open network so not particularly secure. We were feeling pretty relaxed, glad the day was over and we were off the road for awhile. That's when the freight train came through the living room.

Or at least that's what it felt like. Loud, very loud, and very close. Turned out that train was not an anomaly. There were a frequent trains. Luckily, the S.O. and I can tune out freight trains. I grew up in a house next to railroad tracks. I find it easier to sleep next to railroad tracks than next to a highway with truck traffic. In the morning we discovered the only way we could have been closer to the tracks would have been to be parked on the right-of-way. The back end, the "quiet" end of the park is next to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks. 

We also discovered when we drove up to West to do lunch that there are a lot of RV parks along I-35 north of Waco on both the east and west sides of the interstate. All of them seemed to have "Waco" and "North" in their names, so no doubt all of them are hoping to be mistaken for the really good Waco North (North Waco?) RV park, the one that's a Good Sam park and gets really high ratings in the Good Sam guide. Live and learn. 

And now we're mooch docking. The Guppy developed a fuel line problem between Waco and Brownwood so we've been sitting for a few days. We were aiming for Brownwood so we could stop to visit Billy Cook, someone the S.O. and I met through blogging but had never met IRL until last week. He's a retired mechanic (among other things) but I don't think he expected the first phone call from us to be "Help. The Guppy died." 

He found us a place to park the Guppy while he helped the S.O. with repairs. The initial diagnosis was a bad fuel filter. Replacing the filter didn't make a difference so then the fuel pump got swapped out. We're still waiting to see if the fuel pump was the problem. There will be a test drive or two locally before we venture farther down the highway. 

If the Guppy had to develop a glitch, I guess Brownwood was a good place for it to happen. For sure it beats being broken down by the side of the highway.