Here and There

Scott and Jackie's Travels – Thousand Trails Reviews, Campground Reviews, Fulltime RVing, European Travel

Tag: shortstop

2018 – Shortstop – Santa Fe Safari Campground – Chanute, KS

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We’ve spent a couple of nights at Santa Fe Safari Campground in Chanute, KS as we prepare to drop our 5th wheel off for service at NuWa. These are the folks who made the camper and we are looking forward to having a couple of things repaired on it. Just a few minutes from the manufacturer’s service department is this nice city campground. My guess is that over half the RVers who come to this city campground are here because of NuWa service and sales. No one can argue with the price: free for the first two nights, then just $10 a night after that. The campsites are basically parking lot sites with 30/50 amp electric and water. There is a dump station on site.

This city campground even offers free WiFi! There are two sections. The east side is closest to S. Santa Fe Ave. and has all pull through sites and has the good WiFi signal. The west side sites are all back in and are close to restrooms (not well kept) and beyond the range of the WiFi. However, the sites are a bit wider and longer. They are also close to the dump station. We spent one night in the eastern section and then moved to a back in spot so we could stay hooked up and be ready to report in to the service center early the next morning.

Some of the pull through sights are are just barely wide enough for two RVs. People who are trading RV’s park the two rigs “face to face” so they can more easily move their belongings to their new digs. This is perhaps the only time you’ll ever see a RVer happy to have another rig parked very close by!

While Chanute isn’t exactly a tourist destination, this is a great small town campground for a great price.


See individual photos with notes here.

2018 – Shortstop – Warrior RV Park – Tulsa, OK

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We don’t do many one night stops. Our lifestyle as fulltimers is shorter moves and longer stays. When we were vacationers we did the opposite: longer moves and shorter stays. However, there are always exceptions so once in a while we do a “shortstop” of just a night or two. In this case we’re taking our Hitchhiker to its birthplace in Chanute, KS for some long overdue repairs and just needed a spot to land for the night.  One plus for us is that we have some long time friends in Tulsa and we enjoyed some time with them.

All of that to say we did a one night stop in Tulsa at Warrior RV park. Really, it’s a nice place for a short stay; located right on I44 and near Hwy 75. This is an older park, mostly pull-throughs. Our site was barely long enough for pickup and hooked up camper. All the connections are at the back of the site so I had to get out an extra water hose and add a sewer hose connection. The water connect is underground. I had to get down on my knees to connect the water hose.

The owners are friendly and accomodating. I asked about parking and they directed me to some nearby sites that they didn’t expect to use and told me that any of them are fine. They also offered to help me hook up the water if I was having trouble getting to the spigot. Yes, you can hear the traffic, but when you pick an RV park beside an interstate you can’t expect much else. The restrooms are older. When we were there they needed cleaning, but it looked like the need was the result of recent activity.  Our Verizon signal was good, campground WiFi worked fine, and I had no problem getting a satellite TV signal.

If you are visiting Tulsa and need a spot or traveling across Oklahoma and just want a stop for a night or two, this is a good place to land.



See individual photos with notes here.

2017 – Shortstop: Roadrunner RV Park, Oklahoma City, OK

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Roadrunner RV Park in Oklahoma City, OK gets good reviews and we agree. While this is no tranquil, picturesque campground it is a clean, efficient, well-planned urban RV Park. The roads are good and the campsites, while not spacious, are big enough. Most sites are pull through spots that, again, are just long enough. There’s nice grass between sites and excellent utility hookups. The park has a new office and meeting space. The restrooms are as nice as you’ll find. We didn’t hook up to the cable TV but the WiFi performed well except for an overnight issue that was resolved the next morning. The campground even has new underground tornado shelters.

The campground has recently expanded and with that expansion a new entrance was added. Access is now right off of the I35 north feeder road. Just watch for the big campground sign. This is, of course, Oklahoma City so there is both traffic and the noise it brings. There is also the convenience of being close to most everything. The price reflects the location, but, really we’ve paid more. If you need a spot in OKC, this is it.


See individual photos with captions here.

2017 – Shortstop: Holiday RV Park, North Platte, NE

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We had an unexpected stay at Holiday RV Park in North Platte, NE. As we traveled across I80 our F350 pickup had a problem that needed attention. We spotted this campground and decided to stay there while our pickup visited the local Ford dealer. This campground is very convenient to those traveling I80, located right on the frontage road. In spite of its nearness to the interstate, the highway noise wasn’t especially objectionable. All the sites are pull-through with full hook ups, including cable. Park WiFi was pretty good. There’s a pool that looks nice. The campground is sandwiched between some commercial buildings and a motel. Walmart and most any business you need is just a few minutes away. The sites are close but not tight. I felt that it was overpriced, in fact, the price I paid matched our highest nightly stay of the year. However, in this case it was all about location. Happily, our after a few hours in the shop and a swipe of the credit card our pickup was road ready again.

2017 – Shortstop: Robidoux RV Park; Gering, NE

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I was looking for a campground for a short stop in the Nebraska panhandle and Robidoux RV Park turned out to be a great choice. The campground is in Gering, near Scotts Bluff National Monument. Many of the sites are long pull-throughs with full hookups. The sites are spacious. My Verizon had good 4G but we ended up using the campground WiFi which performed well for us. I had no problem getting the satellite signal, although the “nothing on the grass” rule made setting up the dish tripod a challenge. You’ll likely want reservations at this RV Park: from what I could see, the campground was full each of the three nights of our mid-September stay.

2017 – Shortstop: Kidder Recreation Area, Wahpeton, ND

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Wahpeton, North Dakota is located right on the Minnesota state line, around 45 miles south of Fargo. The state line is formed by the Red River, which flows to the north into Canada. The town has two small campgrounds and we spent the night at Kidder Recreation Area in a nice, paved back in spot with 30 amp electric and water hookups. The Red River is just a stone’s throw from the campground and many locals come to the park to fish, or maybe just to cruise through to the turnaround and back out creating a flow of traffic through the campground. There are restrooms and showers plus a dump station that, for some reason, is set up to be used coming into the campground rather than leaving it. There is a pay station at the campground, but if you want to call ahead and pay the city will mark a site with your name so you won’t have to worry about arriving and finding all the sites taken. On our August Sunday night four of the eight sites were in use. You might want to know that the electric/water hookups are located between the sites with the even numbers having hookups on the accustomed driver’s side.

Mention, of course, must be made of the “World’s Largest Catfish” statue which is at the campground. We couldn’t resist taking a few photos!

Since our stay was a short one I didn’t set up the satellite dish, but I’m confident I would have gotten a signal. My Verizon signal was nearly full scale. While this campground isn’t a destination spot (except maybe for people who love giant catfish statues) it works as a nice place to land for a night or two.

2017 – Shortstop: Camping World Campground – Chattanooga, TN

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This campground is operated by Camping World in Chattanooga. Interestingly enough, the store is in Georgia while the campground and service department is across the parking lot and in Tennessee! I don’t think anyone would consider this campground to be a destination campground. The sites are quite narrow and the campground has a generally tired feeling about it. And it is urban camping: a motel parking lot was across the tall chain link fence by our rig. The restrooms were clean but the pool wasn’t open yet for the summer. Surprisingly, it looks as though there are a few long term residents here (let me mention, though, that all the sites were clean, etc.) People come to the campground to await getting service done on their RVs and to take advantage of the low price during a visit to the tourist town that is Chattanooga. We saw one happy camper moving from their old RV into a new one that had been parked facing them in the neighboring campsite. I saw elsewhere that if you renew your Good Sam membership at the store (which is where you register) that camping fees were waved. I asked, and we got the same deal – not just for one night, but for both nights of our stay. Our Verizon signal was very good and I had a clear view of the sky for satellite reception (although cable TV was available at each site). We arrived in late afternoon and all the 50 amp sites were taken. The second day many of them were open into the evening. If you are visiting Chattanooga, don’t mind a crowded campground, and are okay with taking your chances on getting a spot, you might want to keep this place in mind.

2017 – Shortstop: Gunter Hill Park – Montgomery, AL

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We’ve come to love Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds. There is always a lake nearby, the sites are spacious, and the price is right (especially using our half price America the Beautiful pass). Not all Corps campgrounds have sewer hookups, but when we come across one with full hookups we feel like we’ve hit the jackpot.

Gunter Hill Campground, near Montgomery, AL, is all the above. It’s in a beautiful setting with really nice, paved and large sites. With the state capitol nearby, there are plenty of local attractions. The only negatives are a poor Verizon signal, a neighboring race track that can be noisy at times, and getting a satellite signal from some sites is impossible. This is a popular campground and reservations, especially on weekends, is a good idea.

2017 – Shortstop: Davis Bayou Campground at Gulf Islands National Seashore

grscott

If you’re looking for a stop along the short Mississippi portion of I10 you might want to check out Davis Bayou Campground in the Gulf Islands National Seashore. It’s a 15 minute or so drive south of the interstate at Ocean Springs, MS. The sites in the campground are water/electric only with good roads and paved sites. We received a friendly welcome and, when we needed to change sites, the ranger helped us out, putting us in a more suitable site. You may want to know, though, or reason for moving: several of the sites on the parameter (but not all) on the main loop have a considerable slope front to rear. It was highly unlikely that we would have gotten the 5th wheel level in our original site, even with the landing gear as short as possible. I doubt that even a small motorhome in that site would have any chance of getting level front to back. Of course, small campers (popups, Casitas, etc.) would have done fine there. We were allowed to move to one of the two “emergency sites” that are kept vacant for use when necessary. The campground, itself, is clean and pretty and the park beyond the campground boasts a beautiful Welcome Center and lots of nicely developed hiking trails. We had some issues with biting gnats (no-see-ums) which are a bit of a nuisance. The price for this campground is excellent, especially with our senior America the Beautiful Pass: we paid just $11 a night. All in all, we think this is a good stop along I10 especially if you are good with water/electric only and can avoid the problem sites.

2017 – Shortstop: Poche’s RV Park, Breaux Bridge, LA

grscott

We’re impressed with Poche’s RV Park and Fish-N-Camp at Breaux Bridge, LA – near Lafayette.  The route in from I10 includes a few rough roads and several turns, so you want to check out the directions to the campground.  Once you arrive you’ll see a property with five 10 acre lakes.  There’s a paved road around one of the lakes and alongside of another with back in campsites all along the way.  In this campground just about everyone has a lake-front site!  The road around the lake is mostly good, but has several rough sections where the big rigs have broken up the pavement.  That’s the only real negative I can think of.  The lady who checked us in was very welcoming and accommodating.  Our site was paved and mostly level.  We had fairly good WiFi and full hookups.  I got a kick out of seeing kids catch fish (and a lot of adults were fishing too).  Early in the week the campground honors several discount cards, making it a very good deal on those nights.  This campground will be on our list for return visits as we travel across Louisiana on I10 in the future.