CakeHenn

I love that 5thW...what I would call the perfect floor plan for a family (although I'm not sure anything fits a family of 7...unless you go with two). We have a travel trailer and while not as big it's basicly that same layout minus 1 bathroom and some of the size. Hard to beat a 5thW on size and space...but then again you pay for it. If you buy new I'm convinced you'll find the best deals at an RV show. It's pretty easy to find two very similar layouts from different dealerships and then start negotiating with both of them. We actually did that with our Eagle TT. The big difference came d

Texas has had a site for some time now....its ok but not great. I've never booked where you could actually reserve a specific site at the park...they don't assign you a site until you arrive which kind of stinks if it's really full and you have a larger RV. I've never really had an issue though. State Parks here fill up fast in the late spring/summer so you really have to book months in advance for many spots. In fact I just tried to book at one park last week for this summer and after checking multiple dates I ended up having to switch to another park because it was full.

Cross your fingers for some warmth. I think I mentioned it above but we went there last spring break and my oldest did try swimming one of the days it was really cold. That early in the year even on a warm day the water will be cold. There are other things to do though so yall should still have fun.

Good stuff Lone-Star!

Well golf carts help one get off their feet....so it's a pretty natural progression to then talk about chicken feet. Obviously.

When I was in San Francisco years ago I had a buddy... Asian guy...who I meet up with to eat Dim Sum. Anyway they bring all kinds of food by on carts....overall great food. Well they come buy and my friend asks if I want some chicken feet and I kind of chuckle but when I look at him he is dead serious....I look and sure enough fried chicken feet. I played if off and said no I think I'm good.

I love cooking hunting and cooking duck but I've never tried their feet. I'm not going to start. I can't see my dog eating it either.

Other than camping with the family my other biggest passion is duck hunting. Obviously being a duck hunter I have a shotgun to hunt with. My go to is a Benelli Super Black Eagle II. I also own a Browning Over and Under and 3 other shotguns. I have a CHL and my carry gun is a Ruger LCP .380...fits in my pocket. Have 2 Springfield XDs in .40 cal and 9mm. I own several rifles...my favorite and most fund to shoot is my AR15. I actually "won" the AR at a Ducks Unlimited event a few years ago. I say "won" because I've spent more money at those events I might as well have bought everything I'v

Well we found some midweek slots for August at Garner but I decided to pass. We actually end up just calling vs using the website to see what was open and when. I did book 3 nights at Perdanales Falls for July.

Over the next week we are probably going to be booking 2 or 3 trips...obviously the Garner one is out. Wife and I agreed that we would just try again next year. 2014 shaping right up haha.

Wow...I hope you already have Garner SP booked...I just tried like 3 different sets of dates for the summer and they were all booked already :banghead:

Becca...sounds like we will being going to a lot of the same places. We bought our first RV last year...used a Rockwood Roo. It was small but nice...in the end it was just the wrong floor plan with a bad layout so that's why we upgraded. I'm a big fan of buying used but if you want something very specific it's not like cars or trucks where you can find plenty of used. We are going to the JellyStone near Canyon Lake at the end of May. Last year we went during spring break and at that point it was a little too chilly to enjoy the swimming so we said if we go back it needs to be during the

Just blew the budget! I'm sure it will be close to $5 gal by the time I get there.

$3.39 for diesel! That's like 40 cents less than it is here.

I guess being the frugal financial planner I am and going to Disney is kind of a clash. Then again so is RVing in general...I have my weaknesses I guess.

Good stuff guys. The RV parts/camping world info is good to know. On a trip like that where we will be gone for a while there could be some things that happen that can't wait to be fixed. Does this Hess station have diesel? The RV parts and possible trouble also had me thinking about my truck. Are there any recommended mechanic (diesel mechanic) garages near by. I'm hoping we don't have issues but it's great to plan for the worst so I'm not scrambling if an issue comes up.

Keeping up my questions...so here is another. We always go grocery shopping before our camping trips and then just pack up coolers filled with the cold groceries and then take it to the camp grounds and then unpack and put stuff in the fridge from there. Our new camper has a decent sized inside fridge and also has a smaller outside (outside kitchen area) fridge. So fridge space for camping is actually pretty good. We enjoy cooking our own meals and feel like after all the expenses we have laid out for the trailer, truck, fuel, site fees etc then we kind of owe it to ourselves to save where

I'm thinking we would shoot for Mid to late July to first part of August time frame in 2014. When are 2014 rates released? Also if you book early and cancel or adjust plans are their fees? Is there a deposit to book? If you book before the 2014 rates are released are you able to get the 2013 rates in 2014?

Yep...I'm a man... haha. Henn is my last name...it's actually Marc Henn. Cake is a nickname a bunch of guys gave me during a long (and drunken I might add) night at a BBQ cookoff. Apparently I woke up in my sleep and walked toward my friend with my arms stretched out like a zombie saying "CAAAKKKE!" Instead of brains I wanted cake I guess. Ever since then all the guys call me Cake. There are worse nicknames I suppose. My wife won't allow me to take our RV on any of these BBQ cookoffs for some reason. HAHA

Very cool Becca! It looks like we do have the same Eagle...I bet we even bought it from the same place....Crestview??? We were down at McKinney Falls the weekend before last...that's a great State Park in your back yard. Have yall been RVing for a while? I love going to the state parks. That's amazing you booked it already. I wonder if I should get on the stick and book soon too??? For the rest of the group how early should we be booking? I'll for sure have to check out the Star Wars stuff while we are there.

Thanks! I'm sure ill be peppering y'all with many more questions.

Do you lock up your bikes while at your camp site? I've never done that at any camp site I've ever stayed. Not that it's a bad thing to do....just never been worried about bikes being stolen. I normally do lock my Yeti cooler though Kids love to take coolers and those are too expensive to let get stolen. I'm actually assuming you are talking about locking them up while away from your site.

That's something I could do just for the fun of it. Obviously do that for a day where we played to just stay at FW all day would be a good idea. About how much do they run to rent for one full day? As I'm planning everything out in my mind and doing research I've come to realize that for the people that go to FW saying just at FW and the time you spend there is also really fun and that I should not plan to go to a park each and every day necessarily. I'm sure some people will go to a place like Disney World and try to make it to each and every park and see every little thing there is to see..

So you can not drive your car at FW other than in or out of FW? I understand not being able to drive your car to a buddy's site and then just parking there and having two vehicles when there should be only one. Seems like several agreed that you can walk anywhere on site fairly easy plus they have internal buses. That answers my curiosity

So reading around I see lots of posts talking about bringing golf cards or renting them. I've never been to a place where people bring golf carts...much less rent them other than while golfing of course. So what's the scoop? Why do so many here talk about getting them? Personally between a car, bike, and my feet I'm not sure the expense of a cart would be justified but obviously I've never been and don't know why I would need one. I will say this the likelihood of me renting one would be very low....I mean the cost of fuel, camp site, and then park tickets....just seems like I'm already in