The Resort Life

After our quick, two-week trip to Arkansas and Oklahoma, we returned to the Buckhorn Lake Resort in Kerrville, Texas, on December 15 for a month-long stay.  This would be our “home” during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  It really was like returning home when we pulled into the resort and checked into our new site in the Executive area.

One of the things I dislike about most private campgrounds, including much of Buckhorn, is the layout.  In so many RV parks, resorts included, sites are laid out side-by-side in parallel rows.  This means that you are parked right next to your neighbor, resulting in a distinct lack of privacy.  That’s the type of site we had at Buckhorn during our Thanksgiving visit.  Another characteristic is a lack of trees.

When we were walking around Buckhorn at Thanksgiving, we came across the Executive area, tucked away in a hidden corner of the property.  Although a bit more expensive, the area is so much nicer.  This is an adults-only section, which would be a very desirable feature when school is out.  We were drawn to the fact that the area has a much better layout, with only 20 RV sites.  Each site is huge with much more privacy, especially the ones around the perimeter.  Mature trees are a bonus, as is the creek that runs along the edge.  We were immediately drawn to this area and lucked out with snagging the last site that was available for a month.

Our site turned out to be one of the nicest in the entire section.  It was on the end, so there was no other RV on our door side; it was adjacent to the creek and it contained a mature tree (even though it had no leaves at the time).  The site was even larger than most and had many of the features that I look for in a natural campground.  Yet, it had all of the amenities of a resort.  Maybe this was the best of both worlds. 

  

Our Site Was Behind the Tree in the Center of the Photo

This Was a Site I Really Enjoyed

The monthly rate was amazingly affordable, especially compared to the daily rate, and was way under our budget.  I had always read that one way to save money is to stay at a campground for a month, and found this to be very true.

Although Tim and I are not social butterflies, we did make an effort to take part in many of the activities offered in the week leading up to Christmas.  I somewhat reluctantly attended a ladies lunch, where I met a group of very interesting women.  We attended a social hour, as well as a park-wide gift exchange.  Almost everyone we encountered was friendly, particularly our neighbors.

Tim and I became the curiosity of the park since we are full-timing in a Class B RV.  Almost everyone else travels in a very large motorhome or fifth wheel, and no one can believe that we survive in such a tiny space.  We even gave tours to multiple people.  We always admit that we are in the 1% of all full-timers who travel this way, but so far it has worked for us.

The Christmas potluck at the park was a bit more subdued than the one we attended at Thanksgiving, with perhaps half as many people in attendance.  However, the food was great, the company was delightful and the atmosphere was festive.  If we couldn’t spend Christmas with friends or family, this was a great alternative.

A Nice Place to Enjoy Christmas Dinner

The View from Our Site

Lights Added to the Festive Spirit during Christmas

Unfortunately, the weather was not great during most of our time at Buckhorn.  Like most of the country, days were gloomy, chilly and rainy. We did enjoy the occasional sunny, warmer day, but we mostly hung out in the RV.  I’ve found that when we stay somewhere for a longer period of time, we do less touring than when we move more frequently.  Just like when we were living in a house, we seem to adopt the mentality, “Oh, I can always do that tomorrow.”  However, we often don’t do it tomorrow either.  In addition, if the weather is less than ideal, it is easy to postpone outdoor activities.  When we are touring, we generally can’t postpone our activities for too many days, since we may not have the luxury of time.

Staying at Buckhorn introduced us to a totally different type of RV lifestyle than we had been used to.  Many of the folks we met were snowbirds.  For snowbirds, or for full-timers who settle at Buckhorn for much of the winter, life is more akin to living in a house, and we also seemed to fall into that type of routine.  As someone said, “stay-put RVing” is a lot different than “traveling RVing.”  Life seemed to focus on living in the park and the RV park itself, not touring the area.  That’s why parks like Buckhorn offer so many activities. 

Although Buckhorn is a great park, and an even better park to be in during cold, wet and gloomy weather, it’s not where I want to be for more than a month.  I much prefer the traveling RV lifestyle, although not one where we move every few days.  A week usually seems like the right amount of time to be able to tour an area and sit back and relax for a few days.  I can see spending a month in one place, especially over the holidays, and taking that time to recharge and simply catch up on chores.  I was never unhappy during our stay at Buckhorn.  I was just eager to get back on the road.

With the gloomy weather, we turned our attention to planning for our summer adventure – a trip to Alaska.  I always enjoy the planning part of travel, so I loved this.  We typically don’t do a lot of planning, but Alaska requires it. 

New Year’s Eve brought more cold, rain and gloom.  We did venture out and even attended the party at the resort.  Harry and the Hightones provided the entertainment, and we enjoyed the band and the music.  However, we’re not big partiers and didn’t even make it until midnight.  I guess we’re just a bunch of party poopers.  On New Year’s Day, I was able to prepare most of my traditional Southern dinner in the RV.  We may have had to settle for frozen black-eyed peas and collard greens, but we did find real country ham in Texas. 

Ringing in the New Year at Buckhorn

We were ready to say goodbye to 2014, which was a wonderful, but exhausting, year, and greet 2015.  This New Year holds lots of promise and we have much to look forward to.  Despite more of the same weather, we did manage to get out and about before we left Buckhorn.  I’ll tell you more about that in the next post.