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.