We stayed at Paris Fairgrounds in Paris, Texas for an Escapees/Xscapers total solar eclipse gathering.
Not a normal campground, but the fairgrounds does have a few full-hookup sites, along with a bunch of dry camping. We managed to snag one of the full-hookup sites.
Dates:
- Check in: 2024-04-05
- Check out: 2024-04-14
- 9 nights
Weather:
- Mix of sunny, cloudy, rainy
- High temps 68-82°F, lows 52-62°F
- Some wind, gusts up to 30 MPH
Noise:
- No road noise
- Distant train horn noise on weekdays
- Other camping sections had generator noise, but not audible from our full-hookup section
- Some people noise and music
Site:
- Rally parking, full-hookup, on grass
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked nearby
- Unlevel, high on passenger side and front; used hydraulic leveling
- Site about 45 feet long by about 15 feet wide
- Mostly clean site
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, conveniently located
- 80 PSI water, somewhat conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, somewhat conveniently located (2 10-foot pipes needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- T-Mobile: 30 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up, 27 ms ping
- AT&T: 110 Mbps down, 40 Mbps up, 25 ms ping
- Verizon: 25 Mbps down, 9-24 Mbps up, 85 ms ping
- Starlink: not used
- Campground Wi-Fi: none
Amenities:
- Garbage bins
- Food trucks
- Rally
Campground map; we were in the “FHU Section” (Full HookUp):
An interactive map:
Our spot in the full-hookup section:
Utilities:
Other full-hookup sites:
A couple of aerial views, from someone else’s drone:
And some aerial views from my drone, a few days later; several rigs had left by then:
Our coach is the second-from-right one:
In downtown Paris, they have a 65-foot Eiffel tower, with a cowboy hat on top, of course:
Paris downtown lights:
Opening announcements:
Burgerland food truck:
Unremarkable burger, and nice fries:
Mexican food truck:
Mexican food:
One of the activities at this gathering was an all-day “lot crawl”, where each section takes turns to host food and/or beverages, and people from other sections visit to sample them and chat. Some people dressed up in costumes:
Bus conversion and old Beetle:
Food:
Facehugger:
Beverages:
Alien lifeblood:
Eclipse plates:
Jenn with our contribution, rather strong “astronaut martinis”, made with vodka, triple sec, and Tang:
Homemade camper:
On eclipse day, most of the participants gathered to view it:
The day started rather cloudy:
But the clouds moved off in time to get a great view of the total eclipse:
Some more photos in tomorrow’s post.
A couple of group photos after the eclipse:
We don’t go to rallies like this very often, and don’t participate with all activities when we do, but this was a good one.
