Category: Activities & Attractions
Sight Seeing in the Texas Hill Country
December 3, 2012 by Guest Blogger · Leave a Comment
RVer’s stay at Parkview Riverside RV Park, in Concan Texas, for a variety of different reasons. For example; they may be attending a local festival, tubing the river, golfing or attending a music or athletic event. All good reasons. But some folks stay here just to kick back, relax and take in the local scenery. Parkview is the perfect place to get away from the rat race. The Texas Hill Country has some of the most spectacular scenic drives in the entire state. You can drive the rural roads or venture out on to the winding passes. There are at least 2 popular loops near Parkview. The Three Sisters and the Dragon’s Back. Both drives take between 2 to 4 hours to complete. There are pull-offs along the way to rest, take pictures or get food and fuel. The Three Sisters is one of the Top 5 destination rides for motorcycles in the United States! Why? Because of the hundreds of turns, switchbacks, and ascending and descending hills. Start out in Leakey on Highway 337... [Read more...]
Stocking Stuffers for the Camping Family
December 2, 2012 by Diane Berry · Leave a Comment
It’s that time of year again! In the northeast corner of Wisconsin, and many other areas of this country, St. Nicholas visits on the evening of December 5th, a sort of pre-curser to the Big Day as it were. Children hang stockings over the fireplace or on a banister before heading to bed that night. Then, in the morning, they are filled with small trinkets and goodies. My stockings always held a book of some kind, a small toy and a variety of Christmas candies. Every year I like to write a blog about St. Nick ideas for campers, hikers and outdoors lovers to help stimulate the imagination of our readers. A couple of traditional favorites include a new calendar to help plan trips in the New Year and the newest edition of Woodall’s Guide for the same reason. But every year I also like to add a few new ideas that may simply not have occurred to the typical “St. Nick”. Here are my ideas for this year: 1) A Water Filtration System—especially for people like our son Ryan, who... [Read more...]
Gator Park Airboat Tours
December 1, 2012 by Good Sam Team · 1 Comment
The Gator Park Airboat Tours are in the heart of the Everglades National Park, Florida. The tour begins slowly down the canal with plenty of opportunity to observe wildlife in its natural habitat. Our experienced guides will help you spot alligators, soft-shelled turtles and numerous birds (keep your camera ready). One of the first alligators you are likely to spot is Jumbo – an impressive 6 feet in length. We’ll also pass a replica of a common fishing camp used by Indians, a structure made of palm and cypress wood, called a chickee. Then we’ll pick up speed and head for the river of tall saw grass. The water is not stagnant like that in swamps, but instead travels very slowly from north to south. The Everglades is one of the world’s largest and slowest flowing rivers. There is no dry land except for the tree covered islands called hammocks. On these hammocks you can find mammals such as raccoons, whitetail deer and wild boar. The water isn’t too deep, averaging only eight to... [Read more...]
Henry Horton S.P., Tennessee
November 30, 2012 by Traveler8343 · 2 Comments
As winter approached and sub-freezing temperatures were just around the corner, I still had some winterizing left to do with my Fun Finder trailer. After flushing the tanks as we left Top Sail RV Park in Santa Rosa, Florida months ago, we ended up having to use the toilet on the way home. When it came time to winterize I was not going to do it if there was any waste in the system. So-o, we needed to find a dump site and clean out the tanks properly. We decided that it was a good time to check Tennessee’s state park system, which is purported to offer full facilities at their campsites. Henry Horton State Park in Chapel Hill, Tennessee is only 27 miles from our new home. We headed there one cloudy afternoon, planning on an open-ended stay at the campsite (a benefit of retirement) and a thorough cleaning of our black and gray water tanks before we left. Henry Horton is a 1,532-acre state park named after Governor Horton (1927-1933), 36th governor of Tennessee. The park features... [Read more...]
Georgia on My Mind: Cumberland Island Turns 40
November 28, 2012 by Rex Vogel · Leave a Comment
Cumberland Island National Seashore recently (October 23) celebrated its 40th anniversary. Access to Cumberland Island is by a concession operated passenger ferry, The Cumberland Lady. © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved When President Richard Nixon signed federal legislation creating the national seashore off the coast of Georgia in October 1972, it culminated what Park Service officials said was “a long and complex process of obtaining support from various individuals and groups to make Georgia’s largest barrier island one of America’s national parks, reports nationalparkstraveler.com.” Before the National Park Service acquired most of the island for a national seashore, 90 percent of it was the private domain of Lucy and Thomas Carnegie (brother of Andrew) and their descendants. The Carnegies bought the island in the 1880s and built five mansions on it during the next two decades. The most superb house was the opulent 59-room, Queen Anne-style Dungeness on the island’s... [Read more...]
Mau-Mau, A Most Peculiar Cat
November 26, 2012 by Traveler8343 · 3 Comments
My wife and I have always been animal lovers (although I draw the line with snakes and spiders) and have always had pets in our lives. Dogs, cats, birds, and sheep… yes, SHEEP. While we owned several acres of old apple orchard in the mountains of northwestern New Jersey (yes, there are mountains in New Jersey; no, not the Rocky Mountains type of mountains, but maybe foothills to the Rockies kind of mountains), we decided that it might be nice for the kids to raise some farm animals. We chose a couple of Hampshire sheep lambs; Missy and Annabelle. But wait, I’m going off course; this is supposed to be about a cat named Mau-Mau. Mee-Oww!(Please click on picture) Mau-Mau was left behind when a neighbor moved. The day of the move, Mau-Mau freaked out and ran off. The owners searched and searched and cried and cried, but finally had to admit that the cat was gone. A week after the neighbors left, Mau-Mau was seen roaming around the neighborhood, looking hungry and cold. As winter set... [Read more...]
Book Review – Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World
November 26, 2012 by Canadianladybug · Leave a Comment
When you travel with your RV, you sometimes plan where you will end up. And one of the places we would love to bring our children is definitively Walt Disney World. My husband and I dream of the day where we can surprise the kids with an extended trip to Florida and explorations to places like Walt Disney World. I wish I would know when this could happen. I am hoping in a near future. In the meantime, we plan places to visit and where to stay. We have found a very reasonable place to stay for an extended period of time. We just need to figure out when we will go now. As part of our planning, I stumbled on an interesting book which highlights the secrets of Walt Disney World. Here’s my review of it. The Hidden magic of Walt Disney Wold – Over 600 secrets of the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom Written by Susan Veness Published at F+W Media About the book Sure, it’s the Happiest Place on Earth, but how much do... [Read more...]
Plowing for Diamonds in Arkansas
November 20, 2012 by Rex Vogel · 2 Comments
Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world’s only diamond-producing site open to the public. On average, two diamonds are found each day at the park. The state park’s policy is finder-keepers. What park visitors find is theirs to keep. Diamonds come in all colors of the rainbow. The colors found at the Crater of Diamonds are white, brown, and yellow, in that order. The search area at the Crater of Diamonds State Park is a 37 ½-acre plowed field, the eroded surface of the eighth largest diamond-bearing deposit in the world in surface area. Why plow the search field at the diamond mine? The practice of plowing the diamond field goes back to the earliest days of commercial diamond mining, according to Park Interpreter Margi Jenks. In the early 1900s miners used a mule team and farming plow to dig trenches. After tourism began in the 1950s, Millar’s Crater of Diamonds used a road grader to turn over the dirt on what is now the north end of the present diamond search area. Today’s... [Read more...]
Fabulous Fall Camping Activities–Part 4: The Blues Fest
November 18, 2012 by Diane Berry · 1 Comment
I know that Labor Day Weekend is technically not in fall, but for many campers, it marks the end of the summer camping season and time to switch to fall activities. One destination event worth planning for occurs every Labor Day Weekend up at Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico: the Enchanted Circle Festival Labor Day Weekend Blues Fest. Billed as a weekend of music and camping, the event is truly worth attending. The music is free and the camping, Friday through Monday is a mere $25 for the entire festival. Albuquerque’s Taxi Dancer Band performing at Blues Fest Some of the best Blues acts around are booked every year. In 2012, it was the Taxi Dancer Band for Albuquerque, Gulf Coast Blues Legend Bert Wills, Kathy and the Cruisers and Felix y Los Gatos. Clearly the headliner, Wills is known in the Texas music scene as a Texas Blues-Rock legend His music ranges in styles from swamp country and Texas swing to Chicago and Piedmont blues, conjuring up a collection of roots music echoes of everyone... [Read more...]
First Backpacking Adventure Continued…
November 14, 2012 by Cynthia Baum · 4 Comments
When I left off with our very first backpacking adventure, we were just turning in for the night. Picking up where I left off… My family of four all slept in one queen-sized sleeping bag that night—not the best idea we ever had. With the two adults on the ends and two little ones in between us, we didn’t keep each other warmer, as we had originally thought. Instead, we just didn’t have enough room and were waking each other up all night, with even the smallest of movements. The air inside the tent was so cold that any skin exposed (which was basically just our faces), was frostbitten. Even sleeping with all of our snow clothes, hats, gloves, and jackets still on, inside the sleeping bag, we were still freezing! By morning, we were all a bit grumpy, tired, sore, and frozen-stiff. While cooking our oatmeal, we got some hot dogs in a pan, ready to go on the stove next, with an inch of water just barely covering them. By the time the oatmeal was cooked and ready... [Read more...]
