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Category: Places We’ve Been

Places we have been.

City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico

City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico

Located about halfway between Silver City and Deming, City of Rocks offers camp sites, hiking trails, excellent mountain biking, wildlife viewing, birding, stargazing, picnic areas and a desert botanical garden. The park encompasses a one square mile area in the scenic Chihuahuan desert region of southwestern New Mexico at an elevation of 5,200 feet. Formed of volcanic ash 30 million years ago and sculpted by wind and water into rows of monolithic blocks, City of Rocks State Park takes its name from these incredible rock formations rising as high as 40 feet and separated by paths or lanes resembling city streets. The eruption was from the Emory Caldera, centered near Hillsboro Peak at the southern end of the Black Range.

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Catherine’s Landing, Hot Springs, AR

Catherine’s Landing, Hot Springs, AR

Hot Springs is a popular resort city located in the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. The springs popularly believed for centuries to possess healing properties are preserved today as Hot Springs National Park. Following federal protection in 1832, the city developed into a successful spa town. Incorporated January 10, 1851, the city has been home to Major League Baseball spring training, illegal gambling, speakeasies and gangsters such as Al Capone, horse racing at Oaklawn Park, the Army and Navy Hospital, and 42nd President Bill Clinton.

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Colorado Springs KOA Holiday, Fountain (Colorado Springs), CO

Colorado Springs KOA Holiday, Fountain (Colorado Springs), CO

We stayed in Fountain for a week in late May of 2022 to visit our son, Matthew and grandson Anders. Unfortunately our first choice of parks, Cheyenne Mountain State Park did not have any empty sites large enough for us so we picked the KOA in southern Colorado Springs. Fortunately, the Colorado Springs KOA is a good choice for a visit particularly if you have children or grandchildren. Even though their main splash pad pool was still closed due to issues from the off season, there was still plenty to do.

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Ozarks RV Resort on Table Rock Lake, Oak Grove, AR

Ozarks RV Resort on Table Rock Lake, Oak Grove, AR

Ozarks RV Resort is primarily a park for people to buy a lot. If you don’t own a lot, you can stay there if an owner has a lot available when you want to stay and has it open for renting. Because they are owner properties, the amenities for each lot can vary greatly, however, most are pretty nice. We were one of four Augusta Luxe RV’s in the park – the most we have seen in any one place. Two of them were dark blue and were owned by someone in Canada. We hear they come down to the lake for only a couple of weeks every year.

Across the lake from Ozarks RV Resort is the Thunder Ridge Nature Arena. This is a 20,000 seat nature amphitheater owned by Johnny Morris of Bass Pro Shop fame. While we were there they had one of their first concerts featuring Garth Brooks. Even though we could see the amphitheater from the park, Anna was disappointed that we really couldn’t hear the music very well. We did get a good view of the daily air shows that opened each of the three concerts however.

Park Review – Ozarks RV Resort on Table Rock Lake

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2+
Location:  Oak Grove, AR
Site Quality / Amenities: Asphalt roads and concrete sites.
Type: Commercial Park
Access: From US-65 south of Branson/Hollister take Missouri state highway 86 to Missouri state highway 13 to Arkansas state highway 21. Right after entering take Arkansas highway 311 to county road 663 to the entrance.
Staff: Friendly family owned park.
Cellular/WiFi: Good AT&T and Verizon service.
Restaurants: Table Rock Coffee Roasters on Missouri 86 had good coffee. Branson has lots of restaurants and stores but it is a tourist area and can get very busy.
Nearby parks: We didn’t look at any other parks in the area.
What we liked: Clean, well run, nicely landscaped park.
What we didn’t like: A bit far off the beaten path. It’s a good 30 minutes or more to any large grocery store or restaurant. You have to go into Branson, MO or Berryville, AR. There was a boil water notice while we were there and the only notice was at the main office so we never knew about it.
Verdict: This is a very nice park for a week or more when travelling through the area and we’d stay here again.

Blanco Settlement, Blanco, TX

Blanco Settlement, Blanco, TX

For a variety of reasons, it’s been a very long time since our last post. For one thing we have stopped at several parks where we stayed before. I usually update the parks but do not send out an email for those updates. We also stayed at several parks for an overnight. I do create a post for those but they are usually just a review of the park and I do not send out emails for those either. You can find these stops by looking a the Routes item at the top of the web page. I’m also behind several larger stops and I will be working to get caught up on them soon. We visited Blanco almost a year ago. 🙂 Because of that, there will be more pictures and less text since we don’t remember all the details.

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