Today we traveled from Blanco, Tx State Park to the Del Rio, TX area without a clue where we were going to camp. We were headed to Comstock, TX but saw a sign for Amistad National Recreation Area! (Squirrel!)
We don’t make reservations because after three months out here, we realize reservations only work for us about 2% of the time. The only absolute was – we were headed toward Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas and wanted to visit Seminole Canyon in the meantime, which is in Comstock, TX. That’s all we knew!
Like I’ve said before, we’re not afraid of truck stops (if needed), rest area’s (if on a major interstate) and sometimes just a wide spot in the road might work for us (if it looks safe, our gut says it’s safe, and it looks legal to stop overnight).
We chatted up a conversation with the Park Ranger and told him our plans. He was nice and gave us a little advice. He said our best bet at finding a place to camp in this area was at their San Pedro Campground (because of our camper’s size, 30′). He also showed us, on the map, other National Recreation places to camp but San Pedro was only a couple miles away.
Trapper did go ahead and purchase his National Parks Senior Pass here and hoped it would pay off for us. $80 for a lifetime of National Park Entrance Fees being waived (some can be as much $20 per vehicle or $10 per person). We’ll see what we think and keep you updated.
We thought about going onward to Comstock, TX but decided we might-as-well stop here and do some planning.
Our tank capacity (black, grey, and fresh) typically last us 6-7 days and our solar is working just fine, so we should be good staying here a few nights.
So we pulled into San Pedro Campground/National Recreation Area. We drove around and circled back to the first spot we had seen. It was basically a pull through site! Site #1 on the right. Look at this!!!!
The confusing part…. The entrance sign says this:
But the self pay station says $4 a night and $2 a night with a National Park Pass????? So, we paid the $2 a night and put our National Park Pass number on the ticket and hung the receipt on the back of our RV, as there was no marked number for this site. Hmmmm??? I’m still curious.
Park rangers do come through a couple times a day, trash collection is once or twice a week, and the vault toilets are an experience, but clean. I guess I didn’t understand what a vault toilet was. Silly Me!
My vault toilet description: a large outhouse “like thing” in the ground with a toilet seat on top…. I looked down in the hole and it was ridiculously deep! No smells or anything, but the thought of spiders or snakes climbing up to bite-me-on-the-butt, made for a quick stand up/squat pee. Needless to say!
We had truck issues here and ended up staying 6 nights for $12 total! Can’t beat that!
Not to mention the sunsets were awesome!
The sunsets were gorgeous but the truck started having issues! As in it wouldn’t go under power at all! We spent a couple extra days here trying to get it diagnosed and realized it was only a sensor that needed cleaning. Yea, TX is dusty ya’ll. Clean those sensors! I’m glad we were only paying $2/night!
This helps explain why we seldom make reservations. Plans change, things happen, one of us might get sick, etc. and we need to stay longer or shorter periods of time.
I hope this helps out new RV’ers and the reservation process or how long we’re staying here question.