The Pecan Valley RV Park is about 8 miles (12 minutes) west of Junction, Texas, the nearest city.
I thought that it might be interesting to post about towns we explore, in addition to travel days, RV parks, and attractions (please do let me know if this is actually interesting!).
So here are a selection of photos of Junction from a few visits there:
The Post Office:
The grocery store:
Grocery store:
A roadside attraction, the Deer Horn Tree, made of hundreds of deer antlers, in front of a processing shop:
We spent a day visiting Big Bend National Park in Texas, our last national park for the year, and our last new one until we visit Death Valley in March.
An interactive map of our route:
Entrance sign:
Persimmon Gap Visitor Center near the northern entrance:
We asked the ranger about picnic spots; he told us about a secret picnic spot that isn’t normally mentioned, since they don’t maintain it; a couple of shelters, but just one table. So we had a picnic lunch there:
Hazy mountains and views:
Panther Junction Visitor Center, which includes a post office:
You know I enjoy relief maps:
Gift store:
There’s even a gas station, very unusual for a national park:
We stayed for two weeks and loved the serenity of the place. The check-in process is self-serve, and then you pick your own site from the available options. Everyone is nicely spaced out in the park, and they encourage arrivals to leave space on either side, if possible, so you get the lovely views of the desert instead of your neighbor’s rig. We were there over Thanksgiving, and everyone made us feel very welcome, inviting us to the neighborhood feast where we met some of the long-term residents, some of whom have been wintering there for decades. The amenities are basic, but they work. Between the scenery and the people, we’d definitely stay here again. We camped at Loma Paloma RV Park & Golf Course in a Motorhome.
An interactive map of the RV park:
Our site:
This is our first campground in Texas… so you know what that means — yep, we get to add another sticker (the last new one until August next year!):
This park is a bit unusual in that it doesn’t have a staffed office (more on that later). But we can still get packages delivered, as FedEx and UPS will deliver straight to our site:
The utilities weren’t ideally placed, but not too bad:
A video of three cats by our site at night from our front door cam:
A pleasant view out our dining window:
Sunsets:
This campground is away from big cities, and the nearby Big Bend Ranch State Park is a dark sky park, so we have a good view of stars at night (looked better in person):
A sign for the park:
The main entrance:
Slow adults at play; this is more of a long-term snowbird park than a kid-friendly one (which suits us just fine):
The office building:
As mentioned, it is unstaffed; it just has a small room with books and such, and a desk for self-registration, paying by cash or check in an honor box:
A map of the park on the wall:
The other half of the building is a single toilet and a laundry:
Other sites, including several long-term ones; people don’t live here year-round, but several people spend the winter here:
A bird feeder opposite our site:
Wilderness opposite our coach:
Cats peeking over a tub:
The Lizard Lounge is a gathering place in the center of the park:
Apparently once more people are here over winter they have regular gatherings there, but while we were here there was just one, a Thanksgiving feast:
A nice bunch of people, and a relaxed, quiet RV park. I can see why many people come back every year to spend the winter here. We probably won’t, as it wasn’t quite warm enough for our wintertime, but if we’re passing this way again, we wouldn’t hesitate to stay again.
We drove our coach 275 miles, about five hours of driving, from Carlsbad, New Mexico to Presidio, Texas.
That was about double what we normally aim for, but we felt we could handle it, since we had two week stays on either side. And yes, it was fine; it didn’t feel like twice as long, due to taking several stops, plus the drive was pretty easy (no significant mountains or other challenges).
The map route, heading south:
An interactive map, with our stops:
Leaving the RV park:
Our coach with the slides in while traveling:
Heading down the highway:
Carlsbad cavepeople in the median, and a mural of their historic aquaduct, the Pecos River Flume, which is also famous for being the only river that crosses itself:
National Parks Highway:
Entering Texas from New Mexico:
Paladin on the dash, approaching a rest area:
Continuing on down US-62, past the Guadalupe Mountains:
US-62 to SH-54:
A flood gauge:
We quite liked this region of Texas; nice mountains etc:
Dip:
Big dip:
Van Horn, Texas:
A fuel stop:
There wasn’t a great place to stop for lunch around the Love’s, but I had an alternative plan; I had spotted a good place to park our coach elsewhere in town:
Near a Pilot travel center (which we didn’t use for fuel, as we don’t get a discount there):
We went to Wendy’s for lunch:
A funky camera artifact:
Lunch (it’s pretty rare to have Wendy’s, but their fries are actually quite nice, for fast food; I like the skins-on style):
Birds on a wire:
Back to our coach:
Back on the road; we noticed cotton on the side of the road:
Probably from a cotton field:
Another stop:
To check out a roadside art installation, Prada Marfa:
We stayed for two weeks in a patio site and really enjoyed our time here. The staff were all very friendly and helpful, going so far as to help me forward a couple of packages that arrived after our departure. The onsite BBQ was convenient and tasty, especially nice after a day of driving. There is a tiny bit of road noise from the highway, but it was generally pretty quiet. It was pretty easy to get to Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Parks as well as Sitting Bull Falls and various state parks. We camped at Carlsbad KOA Holiday in a Motorhome.
The RV park map:
Our site:
We sprung for a patio site, which included a textured concrete patio, fire pit, rocker bench, patio table, and chairs:
The utilities; there were two sewer ports, though neither ideally positioned for us, but the water and power were reasonably placed:
I mentioned in our previous campground that the water pressure regulator and gauge got frozen and stopped working correctly. So I replaced them while here, plus replaced the water hose with a more flexible one, to make it easier to put away:
Some nice sunsets:
A nice feature of this RV park is that it has a BBQ smoker and kitchen, offering various food options. We had a couple of meals from there; especially welcome on a travel day:
Another meal:
Tasty lava cake dessert:
We made good use of our griddle while here, including breakfast for dinner one night (with Jenn helping to cook the eggs):
We were able to add a couple more National Park stickers on our coach while here:
Another Allegro Bus next to us:
And a Vanleigh fiver across from us:
Another neighbor, a #vanlifer:
Other sites elsewhere in the campground:
“Be patient… I am pushing this thing as fast as I can!”:
An intriguing configuration: a van and tiny toy hauler trailer. Kinda the best of both worlds (or the worst?); would be good for fitting in small campsites like in many national parks; the benefits of having your home always with you when exploring, but more living space at the site:
The entrance and flags flapping in the wind:
KOA sign:
The office and store:
Rec hall:
Porch by the rec hall, laundry, and bathrooms:
Giant chess:
Giant checkers and swing seat (and you can see our coach in the background):
These drifting seed pods were everywhere:
Wind turbine; it sounded like a helicopter in strong winds:
There’s a mix of long-term residents and short stays in this campground, but it was pretty nicely laid out overall. We had a pull-through site in one of the “buddy” rows, but since it was late in the season, it wasn’t super busy. If I did it again, I’d book one of the non-buddy pull-through sites on the outer edge. The staff were very helpful, even going so far as to call and warn us they were expecting some bad weather (up to 100mph gusty winds) the day we were supposed to arrive. We decided not to risk the weather, and they were very accommodating in letting us come a day later and gave us a refund for the lost day. We were escorted to our site and given some good instructions on navigating some of the harder turns, which made it easy to pull in. The one major downside was that there was not a level square inch to be found on the site. We tried different positions on the site and different configurations of leveling blocks to no avail and decided to live with an end-to-end tilt. In retrospect, I would have asked if we could move to a different site, but was too tired and cranky to deal with it at the time. We camped at Slow Play RV Park in a Motorhome.
The RV park map:
When we arrived, it was lightly snowing, including some graupel:
Jenn and Paladin looking out the driver window while working on leveling the coach:
We couldn’t get it completely level, due to the slope of the site; we ended up with two jack pads plus a plastic pad to try to get the front high enough:
Our site:
The utilities were not conveniently placed:
One morning we woke up to a light dusting of snow:
I filled the water tank and disconnected the water hose overnight, since the temperatures were below freezing most nights. However I foolishly left the hose outside (after ensuring it was empty), which broke the pressure regulator and gauge; they really don’t like being frozen, so now don’t give accurate readings, and will have to be replaced:
On the upside, our Christmas cactus is looking really happy, with lots of buds and flowers coming on:
And Paladin is happy to snuggle with his girlfriend, the heated tile floors:
Let’s tour the RV park; here’s the entrance:
The office:
Carved bears:
Amusing signs:
Swing seat:
Gazebo:
Street signs:
Bathrooms:
Pet sign:
Other sites:
So cute:
Much of the park is long term residents:
Food bonus: we had dinner at a classic Denny’s diner in town:
They were rather understaffed, with one cook and one server. But the food was tasty.
