Author: Victoria

Hello, I'm Victoria. I was born and raised in Savannah, Ga. I am a traveling nurse that specializes in critical care. My husband Tim and I purchased a fifth wheel RV and live on it full time. In between jobs, we will adventure within and outside of the U.S. I hope you enjoy reading about our travels and hope our posts help people out with theirs.

Yellowstone National Park

We found a nice large spot to boondock near Hebgen Lake right before Cherry Hill campground off Denny Creek Road also known as FR 167. There are multiple designated dispersed campgrounds off this road. I was able to have AT&T coverage in this area but no Verizon. We were also told we could find dispersed camping along FR 1700 which would have been our plan B. From our spot, it takes about 25 minutes to get to the west entrance of Yellowstone NP.

Since it was Saturday, we decided to wait on Yellowstone and attempted to reach the Gallatin Petrified Forest from the Tepee Creek trail off highway 191, in the Gallatin NF which boarders the park. We never made it to the forest because we had to take a detour when we reached the boarder of Yellowstone NP. From our map it looked like there was a trail along the boarder but either it disappeared or was never there. The grass was really tall, and I ended up getting a rash from the grass touching my legs the whole time, I lost one of my hiking poles when we were trying to find the trail along the boarder and I never even got a piece of petrified wood. It was a bummer, but we ended up seeing moose and some really spectacular views from the peaks.

The next two days, we tackled the north and south loop respectively. There are multiple geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles along both loops (considering the park is right above a super volcano that is overdue to erupt at any moment). Be prepared as the thermal areas do reek heavily of sulfur. The highlight of the northern loop is Mammoth Hot Springs. There is a long board walk that takes you to all the major thermal activity sites. This area of the park is a mad house, almost like going to Disney. However it is worth visiting as it is unlike any natural wonder I’ve ever seen. The bacteria that live in the thermal areas produce beautiful colors of the entire spectrum. Boiling hot water flows down travertine steps white as snow.

The highlights of the south loop are Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone where you can see the Upper and Lower waterfalls. Old Faithful can take anywhere from 30 min to 1.5 hrs to erupt. We were VERY lucky since we only had to wait 10 sec lol. As we were walking up I saw it spatter and I said “OH she’s about to BLOW!” Tim didn’t believe me but a few moments later she started up. The Falls is where Yellowstone gets it’s name, I think (the walls of the canyon are yellow). The lower falls has an awesome trail called the Tom Miner trail. It is about 300 something iron stairs that takes you almost all the way down to the river and is very steep. There are plenty of places to stop and rest and the views are breath-taking (or maybe it is from all the steps). We saw more bison along the southern loop, hanging around the thermal areas the way families gather around campfires. Other areas in the southern loop worth visiting are Grand Prismatic Spring, Wet Thumb Geyser Basin, and the Sulphur Caldron/Mud Volcano.

We had a great time visiting Yellowstone, it truly is an extraordinary place. A place where the ground steams and boils, rivers and lakes flourish between the mountains, and wildlife freely roam. Next we plan to boondock outside of Grand Teton NP. We most certainly will not be paying to stay in an RV park since they charge between $80-120 a night!!

St. Joe’s National Forest, Idaho

With the help of the rangers at the Avery ranger district in the St. Joe’s National Forest, we found an awesome boondocking spot off FR 456. It is only 4 miles up 456 after you turn left onto it from Avery. We had no problem getting to it in our 35 foot fifth wheel, even going through the one lane tunnels. This road used to be a portion of the Milwaukee Railroad.

When we finished setting up camp, we went on a bike ride up FR 456. There are multiple tunnels along this road that go through the mountains. They are really creepy to drive through, but even more so on foot or on bike. When you begin to go through, the tunnel is so short you can see the light from the other side. But as you get more in the middle, the pitch black darkness consumes you. Even though you can still see a little bit of light from the other side, it can be disorienting. The walls of the tunnel disappear along with everything physical about you. All you can do is focus ahead and quickly follow the light…While riding we found trail head 196 at the Telipah campground (called North Fork campground in the atlas). The next day we explored this trail that hiked to Big Dick Point (not kidding on the name). It was a difficult 11 mile hike with a 3,000 foot elevation gain and max grades of 34% and -32%. Bring your hiking poles, or find a good stick.

After boondocking a few days we went to a little town in Idaho called Wallace to do laundry, re-up on supplies and take a much needed hot shower (not that we can’t shower in the RV, just better to save water when boondocking). We stayed at the Wallace RV park for $25 a night, full hookups. There is a nice restaurant/brewery on the property. After a hot shower and a flight of beers with fish and chips, I was one happy camper.

One of the things to do around here in the summer time is biking the Hiawatha trail. This 15 mile path used to be part of the Milwaukee Railroad. It’s in St. Joe’s NF and northeast of where Tim and I rode bikes a couple days earlier. The trail is pretty fun, there are multiple trestles and tunnels to go through. In fact, the start of the trail is a dark, wet and coooold 2 mile tunnel! It was really creepy to go this seemingly endless tunnel. The price to ride the trail is 10 dollars a person and if you don’t have a helmet and light you have to rent them. You are supposed to wear this equipment at all times. However, at the halfway point I took my helmet off since I HATE helmets. My philosophy is if I ride off the cliff I’m dead anyways so I might as well feel the breeze…I digress…For the most part, the entire trail is at a 1.7% downhill grade, meaning you don’t have to pedal hardly at all. Then you can take the shuttle back (for an extra fee $9/pp). We opted to ride the bikes back since we were already annoyed they charged us to ride on a bike path in the first place lol. I will say- it is a really awesome bike path.

Soon we will be heading to West Yellowstone and hope to find a boondocking spot outside the park. Thanks for reading. 🙂

Washington Wine Country

Our first trip on our way to Yellowstone was wine country in Washington. We stayed in Prosser at the Wine Country RV resort. We hoped to boondock but was having electrical issues with the batteries that had to be fixed. I got the idea to come here from talking with some co-workers in Seattle about wine country. The latitude here along the Yakima River makes the land super fertile for grapes as well as other produce. The RV park is right off I-82 but is walking distance to nine wineries annnddd here is a swimming pool! Perhaps our electrical issues were a blessing in disguise since it ended up being 100 degrees here!…The pool came in quite handy. The management was spectacular. Each morning there was coffee and fresh homemade pastries. The only thing I didn’t like was how you had to pay to utilize the showers.

The RV park hosts wine tastings on the weekends. However, I definitely recommend going to the wineries because they tend to pour more for you to taste ;). We really enjoyed Bill’s and Bacchus for the tastings. We went to Hinzerling’s but his wines are all really sweet. We also went to McKiney’s Springs which has spectacular wines (except for the Malbec and Syrah…they were like slap in the face heavy red). If you venture to McKiney’s Springs, make sure you hold your nose high. Indeed.

I really enjoyed wine country. There isn’t really anything else to do but drink wine and maybe go pick some berries or grapes. It would make for a really fun girl’s trip since there are soooo many wineries to choose from. Tim doesn’t care too much for wine but he was a good sport and suffered through each tasting for me. 🙂 In no time we will be in the woods and mountains so it was nice to enjoy some of the finer things in life for a while. Check out the pics below and our itinerary to Yellowstone!

Took that midnight flight to Georgia!

After finishing my 9 week assignment in Seattle, Tim and I embarked in the ol’ fifth wheel to the Olympic National Forest. We found a nice, big open space to boondock off Forest Road 2270. We explored a couple trails and found a few waterfalls. It was nice to get out into nature again after being cramped in the RV park in Lynnwood. We had to cut the trip short unfortunately since we were having electrical issues with the batteries not charging. We moved to the KOA in Seattle for the night so Tim could work on the batteries. (If interested please ask, I won’t bore with the details.)

The very next day we all flew to Atlanta (Marilyn too) on the red eye 0050 am flight. I didn’t get more than 10 min of sleep when we arrived in Atlanta at 8 am eastern time. We rented a car and stayed with my good friend, Shadee, for one night. She is 8 months pregnant, and we were also tired, so we ordered a bunch of pizzas and watched the movie Alive. Good thing we watched this movie AFTER flying lol.

After a much needed good night’s sleep at Shadee’s, we drove our rental to Tim’s old stomping grounds, Athens Georgia. Tim’s good buddy Justin was getting married in a little Baptist church outside of Athens. Tim and I will use any excuse to visit Athens. We started our relationship here. In my last semester in college I would drive up to visit him and ended up living with him for a couple months after I graduated nursing school. Athens nightlife is very fun and alive. The campus is always open and makes for a romantic stroll at night…despite having to dodge huge roaches every other step (this is the only thing I DO NOT miss about home lol).

After the weekend in Athens we drove to see Tim’s family and my brother for a little vacation on Lake Murrary in South Carolina. It has been a family tradition for Tim’s family to visit Lake Murrary every year. Tim’s dad rented a pontoon boat and we had a great time swimming every day in the lake. My Seattle white body finally got some much needed vitamin D.

Three nights came and went by at the cabin before it was time to leave for our ultimate destination…home. Savannah, Georgia is where we call home. It was so good to see my mom and dad again. My nieces and nephew are growing so fast. Full time traveling sounds fun, and it is, but you sacrifice one big thing- family. I hope they know how much I love them but that I am happy. Maybe I will soil my roots again one day but for now I am a free bird.

When we fly back to Seattle we are going to embark in the RV to Yellowstone, WY. I will post the itinerary soon.  Enjoy the pics, I hope you all continue to follow us!

 

Sequoia National Park, CA

One of the experiences unique to California I was most looking forward to was seeing and hugging the giant trees out here. Yes I said hug. I’m a tree lover and proud of it! I was more choked up seeing my first Sequoia than my first sight of the Grand Canyon. It is humbling to stand next to such a huge living thing that has been alive for 2000 years and survived so many storms, fires, and…well, humans.

Tim had planned to boondock along forest service road 14S46 but to our dismay it was not going to work. We drove up a couple miles up a very narrow, very windy road before deciding to turn around, luckily there was a spot to turn around. We attempted calling the National forest district office for advice but the guy was absolutely no help, saying he had no idea about the condition of forest roads (you don’t know if the roads in your district are open or not? Really? -Tim) and places to disperse camp (Every other ranger has been extremely helpful, He probably wasn’t a real ranger, just answers the phone -Tim). It wasn’t until after we paid to stay at Azalea campground and talked to the National Park ranger did we realize that we could have disperse camped at any of the turnouts along 180. Azalea campground is very nice don’t get me wrong but it sucks paying $18/night for no hookups. We arrived at the campground after dark because of our attempt to boondock. Tim was having trouble backing in the fifth wheel because he couldn’t see well. We were both exhausted having just driven the longest driving day, 12 hours on the road. I was on the brink of tears. After finally finding a site in the cold, dark night, I prepared our emergency Ramen noodles dinner and we both crashed.

They next day I felt refreshed and excited to see the biggest trees in the world. First we checked out Big Stump Trail, a short 1.5 mile trail that takes you to see about 5 Sequoia stumps (hence the name) cut down a long time ago. One of the tree stumps, named the Mark Twain stump, was cut down for educational purposes. You may have seen the cross section of the tree on display at the Museum of Science and History in New York. There were so many huge trees on the Big Stump Trail, the first one is a mere 50 feet from the trail head. Sequoias can live up to 3000 years old. When they start growing the young trees boost into the sky about 300 feet. Then they quit growing tall and they grow wider and wider, up to 40 feet in diameter. Even after they fall they don’t die. Their wood is highly resistant to decay and therefore in a way they continue to live after death, providing nourishment to the other trees. General Grant is the second largest tree in the world. He is fenced off to help him keep growing. Apparently foot traffic around the giant trees compacts the soil, making it harder for them to grow. General Sherman is THE largest tree in the world and he is in the park too.

After visiting General Grant, we drove to King’s Canyon, about an hour from Azalea campground. The hour goes by fast as you wind your way into the canyon. We stopped a few times along the way to see waterfalls and take in the views of the canyon. We parked at Road’s End and hiked to Zumwalt Meadow, an easy 3 mile hike. The lovely green meadow is surrounded by granite canyon walls. You can’t help but to stare up open-mouthed at the thousands of feet towering above.

The next day we learned some bad news of the possibility for snow. When we woke up it was cold and gray. Then an ominous fog rolled into camp and we decided to get the hell out of there. I was disappointed because we were supposed to hike the Redwood mountain grove and see General Sherman. But since General Sherman was an hour south of Azalea campground, we knew we couldn’t do it. We had to leave and play it smart. If it was going to snow we didn’t want to be stuck up there in our fifth. At least we had a blast the one day we spent out and about, and I’m glad I got to hug a Sequoia (another item off my bucket list). We will be back to see you one day Sherman!

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

Whelp, I’ve slashed off another item off my bucket list. Before I go into the details of the awesomeness, let me tell you about where we camped. Man I’m glad we have the means to disperse camp, because the campgrounds around here are pricey and fully booked! We camped right outside of Tusayan in the Kaibab National Forest. We drove up Forest Road 302 a mere ¼ mile before we found a bunch of nice options to choose from. It was the perfect spot, only a 5 minute drive to the entry gate of the Grand Canyon National Park AND we were able to pick up wifi and cell service since we were so close to town. The only thing, (as there always is one thing) were the helicopters constantly flying to and from the airport. They make quite the business from paying customers who want to see the Grand Canyon by air. However it wasn’t a big deal because we spent the days out and about anyways.

When we approached the gate there were 5 lanes filled with cars. It felt like going into Disney World. Once again our America the Beautiful pass got us in for free, otherwise you have to pay $25 per car/7 days. The park attendant hands you a worthless map and you proceed to the visitor center. I say it’s worthless because it doesn’t give any detail about roads or trails. They pretty much herd all tourists to park at the visitor center and utilize the buses to get around. I guess this is efficient to prevent traffic jams within the park. At the visitor center there is information about the trails and which bus to take to get to the trail heads. The trails range from easy paved ridge walks to extremely difficult. Tim and I agreed on the Bright Angel Trail to Plateau Point. A 12 mile round trip classified as extremely difficult with a projected 8-12 hour finish time.

So now the climatic moment of my first view the canyon. We took the blue bus to Bright Angel TH. As I ascend up the hill, my eyes eagerly focus ahead for the first glimpse, my foot steps carefully approach the railing and then….it’s there, stretching to the horizon. I initially had to hold on to the railing to fully take it all in. It was so beautiful it didn’t feel real, it seemed like I was looking at a large beautiful painting on a projector screen. After a few moments I said, “okay lets go” and we descended into the canyon.

Down, down, down we go, passing by heavy dry-mouth breathing, red-faced hikers of all ages and sizes coming up. I started to dread the return trip. I pushed the thought behind me and focused on my footing. Two hours later we reach the campground where we had lunch in the oasis. Beware of the squirrels! They are cute indeed but they are very aggressive. While Tim and I snacked on Cheeze-Its, they creeped up and stared, expecting us to throw one. Tim had to stomp to make them run away, otherwise I’m sure they would of jumped us. After lunch and evading the squirrel attack, we proceeded to plateau point. It…was….hot…. No shade, no water, be prepared if you plan to do this hike. It was very rewarding as you get a spectacular view of the roaring Colorado River. They are plenty of opportunities for cool pictures if you are brave enough to stand on one of the rocks that jut out into the canyon. Ascending the canyon was a grueling 3000 elevation gain. It took us 8 hours to hike the whole trip. I must say this was probably THE most difficult hike I’ve done.

The next day we were both sore and exhausted so we did the easier South Rim trail. It’s paved, easy, has many awesome viewpoints of the canyon, BUT – this is where all the tourists come since you can access the trail from the visitor center. If you walk a mere 100 feet from Mather Point, the tourists thin out significantly. Dogs are allowed on the South Rim Trail, so Marilyn got to enjoy the view too.

We have officially hit our one month anniversary for full-timing (que applause). We’ve had a few hiccups, but we are still truckin’ to Seattle. Next stop, Sequoia National Park.

Tonto and Coconino National Forest, AZ

 

I combined these forests into one post because if you look at the map, they border each other, yet are separated for some reason I don’t know. After a nice visit at Tim’s Grandparent’s home in Tuscon, we took the scenic highway 77 up to highway 188 to Theodore Roosevelt Lake in the Tonto Basin. Highway 77 was a lovely route to take to get into Tonto National Forest. One tall, looming thing stands out in the landscape of Arizona, the Seguaro catcus. The large, Gumbi-like cactus stands as tall as a grown man and grows multiple arms. Since it’s a National Forest, we could of dispersed camped anywhere for free but because I wanted to be by the lake we stayed at Bermuda Flat’s campground for $6/day. We literally pulled the fifth wheel right up to the edge of the lake. We kept the windows open to hear the sound of the water breaking on the sand and to feel the occasional cool breeze. The only thing I didn’t like about the site by the lake was the bugs. They were not the biting kind of fly but they swarmed all day and night anywhere sheltered by the wind. I celebrated by 31st birthday here and was happy to get cell service so I could receive happy birthday calls and messages on Facebook. We spent two nights here before heading to Coconino National Forest.

At Coconino we only stayed one night because we were anxious to get to the Grand Canyon. From Highway 3, F.R. 132 is called Crimson Road, so we passed it initially. We drove quite a ways up the gravel forest road 132 and found a nice little open patch in the woods. Once we started up the narrow gravel road we were dedicated. Doing this with a car or truck is not a big deal, but when you are towing something there is a slight worry in the back of your mind, will I be able to find a spot to camp? Will I be able to turn around if I can’t find a spot? We told ourselves that next time we would pull over and unhitch the trailer so we could scout out a spot a little easier. Since we arrived early, we had time to go for a hike to see Priest’s Draw, a large exposed rock that is popular for bouldering. Bouldering is when you climb up the rock a couple feet without ropes. We saw several people bouldering, carrying with them crash pads to place under the rock for when/if they fall. We also saw a bunch of chipmunks, which triggered me to sing Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas songs pretty much the whole time.

There wasn’t too much going on in these places, hence the short and sweet post. They were means to get to the Grand Canyon, on which I will extensively report next time! Thanks for reading!

Gila National Forest, New Mexico

After having our LP blue flame heater installed in El Paso, we were ready for our first attempt at boondocking. (The reason we needed this “Blue Flame” heater for boondocking when we already have a furnace is because the furnaces that are built into RV’s use a lot of electricity to run their blower. When we’re boondocking it would quickly burn through all of our batteries. The link below is the one we purchased. -Tim)

[amazon asin=B002NLW93U&template=iframe image]

What’s cool about staying in a National Forest is you have the option to boondock where ever you want. The park rangers call it “dispersed camping.” The first night at Gila (pronounced He-la), we stayed at the sparsely populated Mesa Campground for 15/night for water and electric hookups. Tourism doesn’t pick up until May in this part of the country since it still gets really cold at night in April, hence why we needed the LP heater. We decided to go ahead a pay for one night so we could fill up our water tank to prepare to boondock. The next day we went to the ranger station north of Mimbres to inquire about our options for dispersed camping with a large fifth wheel. The ranger suggested going up road 150. When we approached the road there was a sign warning proceeding with vehicles over 20 feet in length. After contemplating a few minutes whether to go back to the ranger’s station to ask him again or just go for it, we decided to go for it. It turned out that he was right. We easily made it up the gravel road to our sweet spot on a little plateau off the road. We had an almost 360 degree view of the forest. It was a little windy since there wasn’t much tree cover, but the old Yellowstone held up quite well against the gusty wind. To get the trailer leveled was a bit of a challenge. Up until now, we hadn’t really needed to try and level it. At first we tried to use those plastic orange levelers, but after a couple attempts and breaking one or two of them we determined that trying to back onto them with double axle wheels on rocky ground wasn’t going to work. The orange levelers worked fine on the front two legs and we ended up using wooden 2×4’s to level the wheels. If anyone has advice about this please comment below.

The next day, we drove over to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. It’s a scenic drive with lots of places to pull over and marvel at the mountains and cliffs. When we arrived we realized dogs are not allowed on the trail to the dwellings, so Marilyn had to wait in the car. One lady couldn’t help herself and brought her Boston Terrier in a bag. It looked ridiculous with only it’s head popping out of the bag. As the tour guide explained the dwellings, the dog obnoxiously whined and eagerly licked the woman’s allowing hand. It was only slightly distracting. We hadn’t planned on doing a tour but when we got to the dwellings one had just begun so we merged in with it. It was interesting because the tour guide pointed out things I wouldn’t have noticed. On the way to the dwellings I noticed a canyon ridge that I thought would be awesome to hike. When we drove up to it on the way back, I told Tim to pull over. It was the first off trail hike we have done. I was constantly looking for rattlesnakes or arrowheads. I thought to myself how the Apache would of probably used the ridge for hunting, taking advantage of the high ground. It was awesome because I’m sure not many people have walked down that ridge and seen the views of the canyon from that perspective.

On our departure, we decided to take a different route leaving the forest. Since we had to drive out of the way to head to Mesa campground to dump our tanks we decided instead of going back the way we came we would make a circle taking 15 South, thinking we would save time. Boy was I ever wrong. We ended up going down an extremely steep and treacherous road that took 2 hours to go 20 miles. It was stressful on both of us. We had to pull over twice to let the transmission fluid cool. (Lucky I had purchased an OBD II connector that let me view our transmission temperature on my phone or tablet, along with other important data, super useful. The one below is what we have, it’s only for android but there ones for IOS also. It works with most cars made in the last 20 years or so. -Tim)

[amazon asin=B005NLQAHS&template=iframe image]

 

Our lesson learned?? Be more specific when asking the ranger on what roads to avoid. Poor Oso (our truck).

 

BIG BEND

Big Bend National Park, Texas

After passing through the entry gate at Persimmon Gap, I felt as though I was driving through a National Geographic magazine. Picture purple, yellow and white wildflowers lining a long paved road, a desert landscape with various cacti in bloom and hazy, bronze mountains on the horizon. Such a beautiful setting in a harsh, unforgiving land.

With our 31 foot fifth wheel and 4 pound Chihuahua, our choices for camping were limited. Our only option was to stay in the Rio Grande Village campground. Regular camping is only $14 a night and with our America the Beautiful Pass admission was free (normally $20). All the sites are spacious, some are in direct sun, some have all shade. We chose a spot with a little of both since we needed our solar panels to get some sun. There are public restrooms but no showers. If you want to shower you can pay for one at the village store, $1.50/3 minutes. There are sites available with electric and water hookups but they were all taken. These sites are more costly at $33 a night and packed tightly together in a parking lot. There is another campground in the Chisos basin but you can’t go there with a trailer greater than 24 feet. For those without RV’s and not into “roughing it”, there is a lodge at the Chisos basin. There are a ton of sites for back country primitive camping as well which would have been awesome, but unfortunately we couldn’t do it since National Parks don’t allow dogs outside of the developed campgrounds. There are a couple gas/diesel stations throughout park, so no need to worry about running out of fuel if you want to see the entire 880,000 acres of the park.

The first day we planned to kayak the Rio Grande through the Santa Elena canyon. The renowned canyon is one of the highlights of the park and visited by many. The ranger suggested we put in at the Santa Elena boat ramp and kayak up river to the canyon and float back. I’m starting to see a trend here in Texas. Do Texans never kayak or simply not understand the logistics? It was our second suggestion to “just paddle upriver and float.” If the water is too low you simply cannot do it! Nevertheless, we didn’t give up like at South Llano, we were too determined to see and kayak through the canyon We had to portage the kayak at least 7 times. It was hard work but it was worth it in the end. Our point of view from the kayak was spectacular. The Rio Grande River, from what we saw, is very calm, narrow and shallow. Tim and I joked that it should be renamed the Rio Grande Creek. In the canyon, the only sounds are from little songbirds chirping and flying to and from their nests on either side the towering canyon. With the help of the current, only two portages were required on the way back.

The second day, we hiked to Emory Peak, the highest peak in the park at 7,825 feet. A 10.6 mile hike round trip from the basin with a 2,000 feet elevation gain. It was our first day hike in the desert. We each carried 3 liters of water and lunch. We passed a few hikers that were hiking to their primitive camp, carrying with them gallons of water for dry camping. Water is scare here so you have to carry a gallon a day for primitive camping. Nearly every plant has thorns, so you have to always be careful about brushing up against something. Reaching the peak was anti-climatic. I was expecting a plateau with a 360 degree view of the park. Yet after a 30 yard scramble to the peak, there was no where to comfortably hang out and have lunch. On our descent we saw a deer, which Tim thought was a donkey at first because they are more grayish toned here than brown. We also saw a small flock of Western Scrub Jays. We finished in only five hours. What’s the best way to end the day after a strenuous hike? A soak in a natural hot spring! FDR believed them to be healing. I agree, or perhaps it was the extra strong white Russian I had prepared for myself….it was pretty amazing. The experience was special for us since it was both of our first times in a HOT spring. The temperature stays at 105 degrees Fahrenheit, unlike the cooler Springs in Florida that stay at 72 degrees year round.

South Llano was awesome, but Big Bend definitely surpassed my expectations. I purposely did not use the internet to get a sneak peek of Big Bend because I wanted the first time I saw it to be through my own eyes. I literally couldn’t stop taking pictures because I saw beauty every where I looked. The mountains change color throughout that day. We were told by many locals that we were lucky. Because of the extra rain the area had received earlier in the year, the wildflowers and cacti were thriving more than usual. All in all, our stay at Big Bend was truly an unforgettable experience.

Five Star Scale Rating
Scenery – *****
Campground – ***
Campsite – ***
Recreation – *****

South Llano River State Park

South Llano River State Park
Junction, Texas

South Llano River State Park is a complete vacation package. A quiet campground with a river in the mountains. All of the sites are large and roomy, but the best sites are the last numbers on the outer edge. These sites face a large field that white tailed deer visit every evening. If you need supplies, Junction is only 5 miles away from the park. Sites with water and electric hookups are $20/night. There are hot showers in the restrooms. There is an entrance fee of $4 per person per day you have to pay even if you are paying to stay the night. I was told that all the parks in Texas do this. So if you are planning on vacationing in Texas for a while, it’s worth it to buy a Texas State Park pass. It is $70 for one year, waves all your entrance fees and includes 4 coupons for half off the nightly rate.

There is plenty of wildlife to view from deer, jackrabbits, ground squirrels and many species of birds. I’ve never been a birder nor have I ever really cared about birding, but this park opened my eyes to the calming hobby. There are two bird blinds that you can comfortably sit and watch the birds come to take a bath and peck at seed. I saw at least 10 different species after just sitting for a couple minutes. Another nice thing about the park is the effort to save land for the Texas turkeys. They have large roosting fields available for them that they do not allow visitors to enter. While we were here, the turkeys were still in mating season so we didn’t get to see any in the roosting fields. While driving, we saw a hen cross the road and on one of the hikes I heard a Tom gobble, one of my favorite animal sounds by the way. Other reasons to come here other than birding, how about a natural fresh water lazy river? You can rent a tube for $5 and float down the river. Be sure to check the water level before planning this as the river was too low when we attempted to kayak. The ranger didn’t seem to know because she suggested kayaking upriver and floating down. Unfortunately we only made it half a mile and after two portages we gave up. There’s miles of mountain trails to bike or walk, with the highest elevation at 2,100 feet. We saw many mountain bikers so it must be a popular spot.

We had only intended to stay two nights here but I fell in love with this park, so we stayed three. There are a lot of nice parks in Florida, but this was the first park that I’ve experienced this ecosystem. I love that I am able to have these new adventures. I’m so far away from everything I’m used to and yet I feel comfortable. I can’t wait to see more mountains and deserts in Texas at Big Bend.

Five star scale rating
Scenery – *****
Campground – ****
Campsite – ****
Recreation – ****