What's Thousand Trails Indian Lakes Like? And Eldo's Birthday

Lots of green spaces for picnics

Indian Lakes, Batesville, IN.  April 18, 2022.  Site 4552   High: 50's-60's, Low: 30's -50's.  ATT signals excellent. 5G one bar. Not needing to use our T-mobile hot spot at all.

We are at Thousand Trails, Indian Lakes, which is in Batesville, IN. It's a BIG, beautiful park with over 154 NEW, 50 amp sites, lots of ponds, a lake, a new pool area, a nice dog park, and a campground store/fuel station on the grounds. They sell propane there as well. This park is a jointly owned KOA and Thousand Trails park so there is a KOA section attached to the Thousand Trails park. 

The new sites are amazing! Unfortunately, they didn't plant very many trees in the new section at all, so as the grass starts to grow between the very wide sites, that's about all that's going to be green and there won't be any shade at all. Many of the sites on the outside edges have already been claimed by seasonal, especially the ones that back up to the woods, of course! 

new section at rear of the park

Currently, the total number of sites are well over 800, including the many, many seasonal and annuals. We aren't privy to how many of the sites are for transient (overnight, passing through or a two to three weeks stay,) so that number might mislead you, as the number of sites for Thousand Trails camping members is always limited.  Here we are, in the middle section of the park, phase 4B for a few days. It's a nice site but along the main road from the front gate to the other sections of the park, so lots of traffic. 

our site #4552 phase 4B

Sparky was told that when all the sites in the different phases are completed, the park will be BIGGER than Orlando Thousand Trails RV Park which currently has over 1,000 sites. 

another view of the new section

We like Batesville for the following reasons...There are extremely few park models in the park. There are seasonal/annual site clusters so if you are in an RV and only staying for a few days to a few weeks, you are assigned in the areas where others are doing the same thing. At some Thousand Trails parks, you get sandwiched in between park models and it's extremely difficult some times to back your rig into a site on narrow streets lined with park models. We like it that we are surrounded by other RVers and not residential park model owners. It's just better to be where you feel comfortable and have a similar life style--the nomadic lifestyle!

common area at Indian Lakes

Sometimes we imagine that park model owners are probably not too enthusiastic with RVers and their visible sewer hoses snaking all around the ground lot and occasional smells that go with that when you dump your sewer tanks into the system. But we could be totally wrong about that. Many a wonderful friendship starts up at an RV park because EVERYBODY, well, almost  everybody started out as an RVer, then settled down when they found a park they truly loved, and then maybe bought a park model to stay for long periods of time.

There is ample green space, huge green fields, ponds and lakes, AND the roads are very decent in most areas of the park but a couple. You can ride a bike easily all over the park and get a lot of miles in. You can fish. You can kayak if you have your own. They just completed a new pool construction project coupled with a wading/shower spray fun stuff pool for the young ones. (Sparky forgets what you call that!) Oh, yeah. A splash pad! There is a nice building for an activity center. There is a beautiful playground for the kids. 

There are three laundry rooms currently. Sparky loves it that families are here. It's a great mix of young and old, and of course, Sparky loves kids and interacting with them.

The sites whether they are back in or pull through, are spacious and wide. Plenty of room between you and your neighbor, and they are LEVEL--hallelujah! and are gravel. However, there are very few pull throughs in the park. There are some in the old section as you first come in, and seem to be readily available because they are older and not as level, then there are some pull thrus in the new section at the back of the park, but most of those are already taken by annuals or seasonal it seems. Here is a sample pull through in the older, first phase section.

Overall, the park is easy to navigate around in, no problem driving through the park when you come in to look for a good site. Lots of amenities, friendly helpful staff. You are 20 miles from the nearest Walmart and 5 miles from a nice Kroger store. 

A few nice restaurants around...We ate at the Brau House for Eldy's 74th birthday, a VERY German restaurant in Oldenburg, which is right next to Batesville. It's a town of German ancestry. Eldy had a pork tenderloin sandwich, probably THE most favorite thing he likes to eat, if he can find a good one. Indiana is known for that, but did you know there is a PORK TENDERLOIN TRAIL, just like there is a bourbon trail, or a wine trail or a whiskey distillery trail? YEP! Right here in Indiana. We are going to have to check that out. Nothing better than a humongous breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, in Eldo's opinion. Happy birthday, Eldy! (Sparky thinks he looks good for 74, don't you?)

Our last day in Batesville, we had SNOW! We had already delayed our leaving by one day as we had heard the weather was bad further north. So we stayed in Batesville one more day. Sparky loves, loves, loves snow. Not the kind that stays for a long time, or the icy streets and sleet kind, but just enough for a day to go out and enjoy it and walk in it. It just brings back wonderful childhood memories of walking to school on tree lined streets that made a big canopy overhead. So quiet and peaceful walking to school. So fun "skitching" rides on the back of cars when we were kids. That's where you wait for a car to go by, and then grab the bumper and slide on your feet, then letting go before the driver realizes you're at the back of the car!  The things we did when we were kids!

We are headed to Elkhart and Howe, IN tomorrow and for the next few weeks, so we will be headed to doctors, dentists, and family visits with Eldy's son and his gang. And--the Pumpkinvine Bike Trail. We'll see you later..... Bye for now.....

Sparky is for the Birds!

In between letting you know where we are and what we are doing, Sparky decided to get her bird pole shepard's hook out after seeing a wide variety of birds at our Diamond Caverns campground. She went and bought a niger seed sock feeder, a big seed ball in the shape of a bell, and a metal cage feeder that holds round peanut butter or similar balls. You just drop the balls in the feeder. The jury is still out whether the birds like the commercial peanut butter ball ones (Sparky got all this at Walmart), but it was a start, and it didn't take long for the birds to decide they like the offerings, at least a few of them. We've got goldfinches visiting, and a tufted titmouse or two.

And of course, the squirrels did, too...ugh...There's no baffle on the Shepard's hook pole, so no wonder the squirrels can get the seed bell which was their favorite, very easily. They proceeded to hit the seed bell hard, so Sparky decided to take it down for a bit, and placed it in a zip loc, (freezer thickness) bag and put it in the storage bay. RVers know where this is going, right? 

After the forecast said a LOT of rain was coming, Sparky decided it was a good thing to have taken the seed ball bell down for a couple of days and forgot about it. The sun came back out on the third day, so Sparky opened up the bay to get the seed ball out and......

MICE had gotten into the bay and chewed a hole through the freezer thickness zip loc bag, then decimated the seed bell, scattering seed shells from one side of the bay to the other, making a big mess and leaving little micey droppings everywhere they went in the bay. Now this is a VERY bad thing for an RVer  Mice like to chew, and being rodents, they are known for getting into the wiring of RV's, trucks, etc. and chewing their way through wires causing beaucoup dollars in damage if you don't spot them fast enough or have some kind of deterrent in your bays.

We quickly got rid of the seed bell, and actually placed it back on the bird pole, vacuumed out the bay, and then deposited wrapper less bars of Irish Spring soap in the bay. Irish Spring soap is a popular rodent/varmint/critter deterrent--they supposedly hate the smell and RVers swear by it. Who knew?!  So we shall see if that did the trick. No idea where they came in, but there are quite a few places mice can find, RV's are not the tightest when it comes to construction.....

The next day, the seed ball bell disappeared off the pole. It's completely gone, hanging string and all. We are not sure how that happened, there's no evidence the ball was ever hanging there! 

Sparky is going to have to rethink her strategy for storing bird seed, that's for sure! Maybe a metal tin canister with an airtight lid. The last thing we need is more varmints/critters/insects coming along for the ride! We've already had a stink bug infestation, a lady bug infestation, and now, a visit from a mouse or two. We don't need no stinkin' mice!

See you on the road again in a couple of days....

Our Second and Final Week at Diamond Caverns RV Park

Shepard's Purse wildflowers at Mammoth Cave

Diamond Caverns RV Park.  Site A-11, back in

Weather: Highs--59, 56, 45, 50, 67, 72, 70, 69

                Lows--42, 39,33, 30, 55, 57, 61, 57, 43

The weather has been crazy....One night we had wind gusts up to 50 mph, but amazingly did not lose power. The coach was a rockin' and a rollin'! Temperatures are all over the place this April, and it's raining a LOT!

In between the rains, Sparky has been hiking the trails inside Mammoth Cave National Park, and biking the Bike 'n' Hike Trail from the campground to the visitor's center and back, for a distance of about 14.6 miles, several times a week.

Swamp along the bike trail

If you want to hike the trails inside the national park, most of them are very short and lead in and out to other trails. By combining them, you can get a nice longer hike in. The longest trail in the park, the Green River Bluffs Trail, is a little over a mile (1.3) until you pick up another trail to add to your hike. The Hike and Bike Trail shown below, doesn't look too bad, does it? Until you get up close and personal with it. More about that in a bit.....

Mammoth Cave Hike and Bike Trail

1. Dixon Cave Trail--0.5 mi....Cool steps lead away from a cave entrance that is not open to the public.

2. Echo River Spring Trail--0.6 mi...easy loop trail, wheelchair accessible, where an underground river is seen exiting a cave. You can also see the ferry system on this trail.

3. Heritage Trail--0.5 mi., easy accessible trail, information boards along the way...

4. River Styx Spring Trail- 0.4 mi., moderate trail with LOTS of steps and some elevation change. You can access several of the other trails from this one.

5. Two Springs Trail--0.6 mi., easy to moderate trail

6. Sinkhole Trail--1.0 moderate trail, view Mammoth Dome Sink and see White's Cave, (not open to the public).

7. Cedar Sink Trail--1.0 mi., moderate trail with very large sinkhole. Several sets of stairs, good workout!

8. Sloan's Crossing Pond Walk--0.4 mil, accessible boardwalk around a small pond. This pond is off the Mammoth Cave Parkway before you get to the visitor's center. A small pond, not much wildlife, but you never know what's there unless you go see!

9. Turnhole Bend Nature Trail--0.5 mi, moderate trail with stairs, views of small sinkholes and the Green River.  Located at the Brownsville Road turn off of Mammoth Cave Parkway, before arriving at the visitor's center.

10. Mammoth Cave Railroad Hike and Bike Trail--9 miles one way if you go all the way from Park City to the visitor's center inside the national park. It's 7.3 miles one way from Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns RV park. It's a STRENUOUS, rocky trail, very hilly, and according to Sparky's Apple watch, it's over 400 feet in elevation change.

a better section of the trail

There are steep hills immediately on the trail where you get on right outside the Diamond Caverns offices across the street from the RV park. Sparky had to get off her bike more than once to make it up the hills. Then the trail levels off for a bit, but then winds up and down in smaller hillier sections. There's a REALLY steep section as you get closer to the two, newly renovated wooden bridge sections. Sparky can ride down it with the brakes on all the way, but has to walk her bike back up to the top, on the way back home. The renovated bridge sections are so nice! You can still smell the new wood as they just had finished them before we got to the park. They have gentle friction speed bump strips, at least that's what Sparky thinks they are, to slow your speed down as you descend coming back from Mammoth Cave. On the old bridge, it was brakes on all the way back down!

The trail is about 50% larger sized gravel. They are actually more like rocks. It is a bone jarring, teeth rattling ride for about half the way. You better have great tires if you take this trail! Some of the trail is very soft sand near some wooden boardwalks so your tires then sink and slide. It's hard to enjoy the forest scenery when you have to be dodging big rocks with your bike tires.  Sparky has ridden this trail MANY times in our visits here, maybe at least ten times, and has never seen any deer until her last bike ride. Two deer came moseying along and crossed the trail right in front of her, a few yards ahead. Other than that, it's a sparse forest right now, being that it's  early spring.

More cave tours have opened up this time. The green buses are running services to other cave site locations. Here are brief descriptions for some of them but check out the national park website for more details. There are quite a few tours that have opened back up since Covid restrictions have been relaxed. You still have to wear masks on the buses, however.  Here are the current Green Bus Tours with adult prices: (Be sure to use your senior pass for half price savings if you are old enough!) 

1. Domes and Dripstones--2 hour tour, 500 stairs, 3/4 mile.  $21.00

2. Frozen Niagra Tour-- 1.25 hours, 12 stairs + optional 98. $18.00

3. Violet City Lantern Tour--3 hrs., 3 mi., 160 stairs, hills, no handrails. $25.00

4. AND--Grand Avenue Tour--4 hrs., 4 mi., 1,313 stairs--physically demanding, yep!  $35.00 Sparky is going to hit some cave tours on the next visit.

The Mammoth Cave Hotel is undergoing significant renovations, so it is CLOSED and so is the cafe/restaurant grill there. The bridge over to the hotel is blocked off and the entire area around the hotel fenced off. The hotel is getting a brand new roof and new insulated windows. There is a mobile little cafe building that has been placed out front of the visitor's center with plenty of meal choices and ice cream. (Ice cream? Did she say ice cream????) Eldo really perked up on that.

Back to the trail. The trilliums are starting to poke thru the soil. These are called little sweet Betsy trilliums.

Sparky likes looking for the unusual within the ordinary. Like this bird's eye view through an old tree stump tower.

Or this pretty pattern of lichens and bark together....

The flowering pear trees are in full bloom....

And this area has LOTS and LOTS of redbuds...They are blooming, too!

Just to recap the Diamond Caverns RV park stay...the park is small, the sites are gravel and clay soil, they do have a small laundry, a "quiet room" for watching TV or reading away from your site, a mini golf course and a nice playground for kids...Neighbors are  close but not as close as some parks. It's more of a rural, country park atmosphere.

The park is not close to shopping, the nearest town for a Walmart and chain restaurants is Glasgow, KY, 15 miles away. We're saving money by not eating out much at all! But Cracker Barrel is in Cave City, which is the next exit up, so we have enjoyed a breakfast or two there. And--Glasgow has a Joann Fabrics! Sparky was absolutely delighted to find that out! (So we are not saving at much in fuel costs as we are restaurant costs, laughs Eldo.) 

With that, we get ready to leave Park City, KY, home of the beautiful Mammoth Cave National Park. In a few days, we will be heading towards Indiana, to the Batesville Thousand Trails park. After that, it's on to Howe, IN where we will be back and forth between Howe and Elkhart, IN to see Eldy's son's family, taking care of routine doctor, dentist, and maybe cataract surgeries for the both of us. We shall see.....(pardon the pun!). Thanks for following along with us...Bye for now!

A Long Journey to Kentucky

Diamond Caverns, Park City, KY....Site: A-11, back in. AT&T terrible, T-Mobile Mi-fi good. 

Rvers like to know how other RVers travel from destination to destination. So here we go....from Lake Conroe, TX to Mammoth Cave, KY, our distance covered this week was about 1,037 miles. We did it in three days to avoid getting caught in severe weather storms this down south. Here's how we went:  From Lake Conroe to FM830, then Texas 75,  to FM3083, then 336 Loop, to Texas 105, then 69 south,  then I-10 East. We spent the night at Cajun Palms, (site 37) in Louisiana. We drove through Baton Rouge, crossed the bridge over the mighty Mississippi, picked up I-12 East, then I-65 north. Our second night we stayed at Gunter Hill, COE park (site 68 back in) near Montgomery, AL. Back on I-65 the next morning. Traffic was totally shut down on I-65 due to bridge work so we were rerouted to 31 for awhile until we could pick up I-65 again in Decatur, AL. Then on to Park City, home of Mammoth Cave National Park.

We traveled over the amazing Atchafalaya River Basin Bridge, with which is over 18 miles long, and the third longest bridge in the US. Pretty amazing architectural feat building this bridge over swampland, with the river basin in-between the bridge sections, isn't it? Wonder if the bridge ever floods?

Cajun Palms

We liked this particular route because there are more decently rated parks traveling this route. We really like Cajun Palms RV resort. It's our second time passing through at this park but we could easily stay for more time. Not cheap, about 66.00 a night, but what a nice park! Wide spacious sites, beautiful pool area which wasn't opening for a few days yet. 

Our second night was at Gunter Hill, a Corps of Engineer Park, near Montgomery, AL, a park we have stayed at many times. The sites are HUGE...Sparky found a new trail she had not seen before that was in a different section of the park. 

As it is late March and the weather has been very abnormally chilly here in Alabama, the spring flowers are not up yet. But Sparky did find beautiful, wild Atamasco lilies blooming.

This is the park where a rogue limb took out BOTH our awnings out last year. So when we heard there was a big storm brewing and going to hit the area with high winds, we decided to leave the next day and put in a big driving day of over 400 miles to get further away from the bad winds and possibilities of tornadoes. But we managed to get a dinner at Jim 'n' Nick's...a really great BBQ place with the most amazing sweet little dinner biscuits in Prattsville, AL, a nearby town, before we left the next morning. Sparky bought some extra biscuits to freeze, they are THAT good!

And we made it to Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns RV and Golf Resort. It's really not as swanky as it sounds. The RV park is quite small, showing its age, and there are quite a few annuals/seasonals in many of the sites, so it's not easy to get a site without planning way ahead of time. Sites are not very level, but we found one that an annual person had just left their site which was decent, and moved back home. So we snagged it! Sparky is excited about hiking inside Mammoth Cave National Park, and biking the very strenuous rocky gravel bike/hike trail, which is 7 miles one way from the RV campground to the park office. We have done cave tours in the past, so we will skip those this time. Hope the weather improves. It's going to be quite chilly this week with lots of clouds. See you soon on a few of those biking/hiking excursions!

Bye for now.....

Lake Conroe Thousand Trails RV Park

Lake Conroe   Highs: 57, 73, 63, 56, 65, 72, 71 Lows: 39, 48, 30, 32, 48, 51, 46.  Site: B66, new section

Lots of kids at Lake Conroe, lots of families

We are settled in at Lake Conroe Thousand Trails RV Park for three weeks. This is our chance to get our slide fixed, (it's not retracting properly and stops part way in,) see Sparky's daughter and grandson, visit with some old RVing acquaintances who live not too far away, and sit tight for awhile as we watch diesel prices climb to over 5.00 a gallon...sigh....It's gonna get worse before it gets better, so we will try to stay put longer and decrease our driving distances, doing all the obvious to save fuel strategies as much as we can. 

Lake Conroe has a new section, which is very nice...big concrete pads not too close to your neighbor, but they are so popular, it's hard to score one. With Thousand Trails, it's first come, first served when you arrive at the park. Timing is everything, get there too early and the people who are scheduled to leave haven't vacated a spot yet. Get there mid to late afternoon, and the prime spots are already taken. It depends on what day of the week you arrive as well. Usually arriving in the middle of the week like Wednesday or Thursday, bodes well for getting a decent spot. Likewise, leaving on a Monday or Tuesday for traveling is better than leaving on a Sunday, but we have done that before. Here is our site for three weeks. We back up to some woods, which is really nice.

Since this is an urban area, there are no great trails to hike or bike trails to ride close by to the park, unless you venture into the Woodlands area which has wonderful walking trails for their subdivisions, but you can ride out of the RV park, turn right on MP Clark Rd., and ride up and down hilly residential sidewalks towards Longmire Road to get an easy 12 mile ride if you go out and back. The Thousand Trails Rd. leading out of the park is a heart pumper, climbing up a ways to get to the intersection where you turn right at MP Clark Rd. and start down the residential sidewalks--unless you want to ride in the street. It's hilly in this area, so you can get a good workout. There is also a small county park on FM830 on the left side as you head towards interstate 45 where you can walk around in circles, haha. It's still a nice little park in the middle of suburbia for a little walk. The trail is about a half mile loop. Sparky just walks in circles and listens to music till she gets 3 miles in.

What is this? Anybody know?

There is also a state forest a couple of exits away--William Goodrich Jones State Forest with some really wide packed dirt trails which would be great for bike riding or just walking. The main trails are laid out in a grid fashion, the scenery just tall pines, not much else. These trails are shared with cyclers (almost none during the week) and horseback riders. (Sparky didn't see any the times she went). This state forest is home to the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, so if you are a birder, you might look for them. 

internet photo

We see that the interior roads are still bad in the park, full of potholes, some eroded and washed out portions, and there are some drainage issues near the new section due to new construction, but overall, the the park is beautiful. Big, massive pool, (unheated), nice restrooms, new laundry facility, and of course, access to Lake Conroe which is a really big nice lake. If you have kayaks, you can just launch right in the park down at the docks. Sparky might even rent a kayak while she's here and head out on the lake for the first time! 

The park is also heavily into putting in new small homes in a section called The Reserve. LOTS of them! 

The redbuds are in bloom.....A lovely sign of spring!

This park is close to every single type of store you could possibly need and amazing restaurants. Sparky met her daughter and grandson for lunch one day at Uncle Julio's, a terrific Mexican restaurant, on Grand Parkway in Conroe. Awesome food! Sparky's grandson is growing like a weed!

Sparky got in lots of hugs from her grandson while we were in the area. He's almost as tall as her!

And she got soundly trounced at Connect 4, a fun game to play with kids. Sparky just might have to find out how to be more of a challenge at this game and check out YouTube for strategies. (That's where you can find out how to solve the golf tee challenge at Cracker Barrel!) By the way, a really great movie for kids 7 and up to watch is The Adam Project. Just as soon as she can, she wants to watch it again, this time with her daughter and grandson. It's really great...It would have a lot of kid appeal to the young who are growing up on video games and smash 'em, bash 'em battles with the good guys and the bad guys, time travel quandaries for the older generation and the kid, Walter Scobell, who stars in the movie, is really really great. He talks too much, and his lines are so funny! It has a time travel element in it, and showcases family relationships with all that comes with a normal family struggling with some things. Sparky gives it a BIG thumbs up!

We met up with Janice and Dave Evans, former RVers who have since come off the road, for a nice lunch with friends of theirs, at Walls BBQ in Huntsville, TX. Then we surprised another couple whom we know from RVing, Jan and Greg White, who were at lunch with the Evans on another occasion!

Sparky is back in treatment temporarily here in the Conroe area for bad sciatic pain. It just doesn't quit. At some point, we will settle in an area for a more long term stay, maybe in Maine this summer, and get some consistent, more long term PT help. That's one disadvantage to traveling, if there is a medical issue and you are transient, it's tougher to get the issue resolved. Luckily, this problem is more of a persistent annoying problem, albeit painful, and not a serious, life changing problem as some encounter while out on the road full time.

On rainy days, which there are more of here in Texas than there are in Tucson, Sparky crafts---metal stamping, quilting, making jewelry and knitting. Here is a cabled headband Sparky knitted for some very cool days in March. She is also working on a pretty quilted and embroidered spring bee pillow cover, shown at left.

We got our slide fixed by 4 Girls Ranch RV maintenance, whose facility is right next door to the Thousand Trails park. Our big living room slide was going out ok, but then stopping part way when coming back in. The guys explained that it was a little out of kilter, they could tell by the decal strips not lining up and that the window gasket around the window at the side of the slide was pushing against the wall of the RV when trying to come in. That caused the slide to "stick" and stop. They jacked up the slide from underneath, and two guys pushed hard against the side of it, shifting it a half inch to the back of the rig, getting it back in alignment. They brought in 4 guys :-) to fix it because it's a big heavy slide, but it didn't take too long. They did a great job and the price was very reasonable!

Despite fuel prices, we still love doing what we do...traveling and seeing different parts of the country. We will hope and pray that fuel prices don't stop us from traveling, but we can always slow down and stay longer in an area. Sparky loves the different hiking and biking trails, and Eldo loves the change of scenery, atmosphere, and the freedom of traveling to different parks and parts of the country. It's a wonderful lifestyle, and still affordable despite the fuel price changes. However, campground prices are skyrocketing as well, as big companies are buying up smaller campgrounds to take advantage of the big increase in RV travelers. You have to plan carefully and think long term for booking reservations and use camping memberships to save money in order to be able to full time in an RV, that's for sure. So we do!

Our site at Lake Conroe in "B" section

So, that's it for now....Our next destination in three weeks is Mammoth Cave, KY and we will see you there!

The "New" Colorado River Thousand Trails Park

Weather: CLOUDY.  High: 81  Low: 72 for one day. Site: E90.

Site E90, corner lot, new section

Here come the temperatures this coming week in Lake Conroe, TX, where we go next. 

Highs: 49, 63, 70, 54, 56, 67, 74. Lows: 47, 44, 38, 40, 49, 30, 32

Eldo is missing Tucson.....So is Sparky.....But we are in an eastern and northern traveling direction from here on out....to visit family, to visit doctors for annuals, to head towards Maine for the summer.

We've been to this Thousand Trails park in Columbus, Texas three times. Since the first couple of times, the park has upgraded with the addition of ONE HUNDRED new full hook up sites, a new bathroom facility, and paving of the entrance road to the park and the roads to the new section. Hallelujah! This is the Thousand Trails Lane leading into the park.

If you've been following our blog, you've probably heard Sparky gripe about terrible pot holed interior roads in many Thousand Trails parks, unlevel sites or old facilities, but Thousand Trails has outdone itself on these renovations here at Colorado River RV Park. Can't quite figure out why they spend 4-5 million on upgrading a park that is out in the boonies in rural southeastern Texas, and not bother to fix TERRIBLE roads and poorly graded sites some of their other parks like Lake Conroe, TX, for example, which is 30 minutes away from Houston, but go figure! Guess Lake Conroe brings in enough money, they don't have to fix the roads!

The new sites at Colorado River TT Park are HUMONGUS, they are super wide! Level gravel, very side entry lanes to get to the sites, ample green spaces with picnic tables interspersed through the new section, and a lake. However, they placed the new bathroom in an odd place, quite far from the new sites, but close to the main road that goes down to the river to the old sections. Here is an example of a site in the old section down by the river, a 30 amp site because it's not on the river side. It's one of the more level sites.

The laundry has NOT been updated. We heard there were plans to add a laundry, and they are going to need it. Right now there are 4 washers and 4 dryers for the entire park. A word about the laundry...They have the new CSC laundry app, (a big pain in the butt) but you can still use quarters. By the way, the CSC laundry app has TWO apps--one is called CSC Go, and the other is called CSC Mobile. Depending on the internet at different parks, you have to use one or the other. If one doesn't work, try the other one. It has something to do with the internet and being able to scan the bar codes on the machines. When it works, it works really well! It tells you what machines are available in your park laundry room, and how much time you have remaining for your wash. BUT--THAT feature is not always accurate.

The pool is small and the shower building next to it very outdated. The office has moved from the old brown building to the farmhouse on the left at the top of the hill. When you come in, pull to the gatehouse, use the call box to let them know you are there, then pull straight ahead and over to the right side where people normally hook up or unhook their toads. Walk over to the white farmhouse and check in. This procedure will probably change, but as of March, 2022, that's how you do it!

If you want to stay in the new section, you will have to pay an additional 10.00 a day. That gets pretty expensive if you stay three weeks, but we didn't mind for three days. The sites are so spread out and so much room between them, it's a whole different atmosphere from the old section. 

The mighty Colorado River-NOT!

The river is still extremely low and sand bars seem to take up more of the channel than the water does, but we know the river can flood at times. Sparky loves this park, it's so quiet and peaceful. She has seen lots of bluebirds and other birds at different stays. This is the park where deer roam freely around sites and in the meadows, but since they mowed down the main meadow in the old section, the deer are not as plentiful. Sparky did not see any deer this stay until she got out of the park and back onto a main road leading back to highway 71.

We love the new section of the park, we just wish there wasn't a charge on top of the membership fees we already pay, to stay in the new section. Colorado River Thousand Trails park has a limited number of full hook up sites in the old section, but these site additions were a much needed upgrade and seem to be worth the extra charge. Guess they have to try and bring in more revenue to help pay for the renovations. Sigh....Tomorrow, we head for Lake Conroe, TX to the Thousand Trails Park there....the one with the bad roads, but fantastic pool, terrific shopping, and most importantly, close to one daughter and grandson! Bye for now......

"Sparky"