Rushing through South Central Texas

After our extended stay in the Boca Chica area, we had a lot of ground to make up in a short time.  I mentioned previously that our intermediate sites in south central Texas - Goliad State Park and Brazos Bend State Park - both closed due to utility issues from the winter storm.  We had planned to spend 8 days at these two parks; 5 of these days were used up hiding out at Park Place Estates, and that left us 3 days without reservations to get to our last reservation near the Louisiana border.  We made two last minute reservations for the first time pretty much ever (usually we plan things at least a month in advance) and brought our final Texas stay forward a day.  As we pulled out of Park Place Estates, the sun was out for the first time in a week and things were lookup up!

Our first stop was at the Rob & Bessie Welder Park in Sinton, TX.  They were under a boil water advisory, so we loaded up with fresh water before leaving Park Place Estates.  Surprisingly, even though this was a city park they seemed to have semi-permanent residents in the RV park - they even had mailboxes!  The park's facilities looked largely abandoned - I assume due to COVID - but the municipal golf course on site was quite popular.  There was a lot of open area, picnic tables, and a couple of playground areas.  Most interestingly, they had a horseback riding arena onsite.  Simple, full hookups, and easy access to the main route we were taking through that area of the state, it was perfect for our overnight stay.

Fun entrance to the park reflecting the horseback riding area

Campsite at Rob & Bessie Welder Park

Even though we were only here overnight, we took a drive down to the nearby coast and walked at Sunset Lake Park, a pretty stretch of ground between Nueces and Corpus Christi Bays.

Sunset Lake Park

The next day we continued our travels along route 77 to our next convenient stop at Tee Pee Motel & RV Park.  This is one of the old roadside attraction motels with tepee rooms, renovated in 2005.  Giant arrows were embedded in the ground all around the site.  It was a pretty fun setting, but the condition of the roads and buildings suggests that they haven't done much for the place since 2005...  Still, the hostess was friendly and the campground was tremendously convenient to our route.  There were lots of permanent-looking residents at this park as well.

Our campsite at Tee Pee RV Park

Closeup of one of the arrows in the ground, with the tepees
in the background

While here we drove into the nearby town of Wharton and visited their local claim to fame - the dinosaur park!

With the dinosaur

A HUGE perk of this RV park was that they were on their own well system for water, and thus were completely unaffected by the municipal water issues plaguing most of Texas.  We were able to fill up our fresh water tank here in preparation for our next stay...where they were completely out of water due to the winter storm.