We visited Waco Mammoth National Monument in Waco, Texas.
This park was established fairly recently, in 2015, and is quite small. It consists of just a visitor center and a shelter over a dig site with several mammoth fossils.
The visitor center and outdoor gift store:
Info sign:
Dig shelter:
Inside the shelter, a ranger giving a talk:
Fossils:
We visited the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas.
Exhibits:
A Dr Pepper cafe where one can sample various flavors:
We tried a Dr Pepper float and a hot Dr Pepper:
Gift store:
RVs all come with a carbon monoxide detector, sometimes called a propane detector. Our coach is all-electric, so doesn’t have any propane on board, but such a detector is still useful.
These detectors are usually rated for 60 months from sale, which is five years. Our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP is six years old, so it wasn’t surprising that the detector in our bedroom recently started to give an end-of-life beep and light flash… at 2 in the morning, of course.
So it was time to replace it.
I ordered another model from Amazon, not doing a very good job of checking for suitability; I hadn’t noticed that the original unit is flush mounted, so a surface mount wouldn’t work (especially being a little smaller, so wouldn’t cover the hole in the wall).
So then I did what I probably should have done, and ordered a replacement of the same model as original from the Tiffin Parts Store, part number 5060082.
Here’s the old carbon monoxide detector:
Unscrewed from the wall:
It has the manufacture date stamped on the back:
The new detector from Tiffin:
It was manufactured in November:
Some tools to replace it; I got out both the wire caps and heat shrink connectors:
I decided to use the heat shrink connectors; here they are connected and crimped:
And using the heat gun to shrink them:
All done:
The light was blinking when I first connected it, which confused me as not one of the listed statuses, but it was just a startup sequence; after a few minutes it was a steady green. I pressed the button to test it, and all was well. Done!
We stayed at Lake Whitney State Park in Whitney, Texas. (Campground Reviews listing.)
We enjoy stake parks, and this was another nice one.
Dates:
Weather:
Noise:
Site:
Utilities:
Internet (in usage priority order):
Amenities:
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Peaceful state park
We stayed for five nights in the horseshoe full hookup campground and really liked it. We were originally going to stay longer but adjusted our travel plans to avoid the ice storm that blew through the area in February. Stupid storm, I would have loved to stay here longer. Our site was a decent size pull-through with plenty of room for our 40′ motorhome and tow vehicle. The width of the site was incredibly large with a fire ring and concrete picnic table all nestled under mature trees with a view across a large grassland area. We camped at Lake Whitney State Park in a Motorhome.
Tip for Other Campers: About an hour’s drive to Waco to visit the Dr Pepper Museum and Waco Mammoth National Monument, both worth the trip.
An interactive map of the park:
The map; our site was in the Horseshoe Camping Loop in the lower-right corner of this map:
Our site:
The utilities were not very conveniently located, at the front of site:
The sewer was unthreaded, but someone had helpfully left a bungee there, which I used to secure the pipe:
A look at the utilities from the rear; the power cord was pretty much fully unwound:
Unwound power reel; unusual to need the full length of the cord:
Camp hosts cleaning the neighboring site:
Other sites:
I flew my drone to capture some aerial shots of our coach, site, the park, and the lake:
We’d be happy to stay here again.
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 196 miles from Lake Conroe to Lake Whitney, Texas. But unfortunately my dashcam stopped recording partway through, so this video is only the first part.
We drove our coach 196 miles, about four hours of driving, from Lake Conroe to Lake Whitney, Texas.
Here’s the map route, heading northwest (fun fact: the dots along the route were to change it from the recommended route, to try to stick to more major highways, since it had recently snowed):
We had a bit of rain, so of course when we brought in our slide-outs we had a stream of water pouring off the slide toppers:
A GIF of the water (and if you look closely, you can see the slide moving in):
Pulling out of our site:
On the (rather narrow) road out of the RV park:
A “stay alert, talk or text later” sign:
Paladin on the step cover:
A 67-foot tall statue of Sam Houston, south of Huntsville, Texas, where he lived:
We stopped at a rest area for lunch:
Parked behind another Tiffin:
Flooded trees:
Paladin expressing displeasure at the rough roads:
A big crane:
Bumpy road:
More flooded trees:
Bridge in a dip:
Horses:
Short wind turbines:
Mart, Texas:
At one point the road was so rough that the retaining bar and some internet stuff fell down:
City of West:
City of Whitney:
Entering Lake Whitney State Park:
Park HQ:
Campsites:
Arriving at our site:
