The Abilene KOA was our first camping trip of 2021. Why the Abilene KOA? Well to be honest, it was hard to find a camping spot available; and we wanted to get Eva used to camping again.
When we booked this KOA the weather was predicted to be sunny and hot, did that ever change. Daily highs were in the upper 50s to low 60’s with plenty of rain the first day and some on and off the second. The nights got into the low 40’s. Needless to say we burned through a full tank of LP in three days.
The Abilene KOA is a Journey, which means it’s considered a lower end KOA from an amenity standpoint. The thought behind the KOA Journey is that it’s a KOA that is good for a stay on your way to somewhere else. This is absolutely what happened for the most part at this KOA. Very few of us were there for a four night stay, although there were some semi permanent residents but everyone kept their space clean so that was fine. It’s a nice, well kept up KOA. The staff is very friendly.
They let us check in early, and there is a backstory to that. We initially thought our Travel Trailer was going to have some repairs made that day; but that was not the case as it turns out that it would take at least ten hours to make the needed repairs to the roof. Ten hours of labor on a roof that was just replaced!!! More on that on a future blog post.
Eva spent the first hour or so barking in the truck. Quite frankly, that drove me nuts. Then she settled in and was a great rider. So there’s hope!
The drive in total was about four hours from our home. Most of the drive was through some decent rain. I felt quite fortunate when we arrived to get some dry weather to set up in. We were expecting to just run from the truck to the RV and bump out the slides and set up the next day.
I struggled to get set up in a timely fashion as I was a bit disorganized in my storage area. Then I had a slight drip at the city water port that I had to tighten down. My neighbor asked how it was going and I said “I’ve had better days” but that really related more to the news about the roof than the set up. He looked at me and smiled and said “first time out this year and no problems so far, knock on wood”!. “That’s great” I responded, and then I set about organizing my storage area and setting up my Dish Satellite.
Speaking of Dish, I learn something new every time I call them. Apparently when you reauthorize your equipment to get a signal, you’re not reauthorizing the signal to your satellite dish; you’re reauthorizing your smart card in your Wally receiver. Anyway, contacting “Dish Outdoors”seems to be a recurrent theme when setting up our satellite dish. Hey, it gives me something to do.
There was a Lance Travel Trailer down from us and I really wanted to talk to them about their experience with it. They seem to have a solid following and a very good reputation for quality.
I would guesstimate that this KOA was probably 90% full the first day we were there, then on Friday and Saturday we had no neighbors at the three sites to the left of us.
Eva and I made a trip to their dog park but since it had rained the day before it was quite a mess. As a result we had to stay in the upper section that was primarily gravel. Not a great place to take a dog if there’s been any rain.
One thing that always irritates me is how folks let their dogs poop anywhere in the campground and they don’t dispose of it. That was a big problem at this campground. Whenever Eva and I walked the park it was an issue. Apparently these folks don’t want to clean up, but it’s ok for me to clean up after them.
All in all, Eva calmed down well after the first day and resigned herself to camping. We only had one disturbance and that was the last night there when a Class A rig pulled in next to us at 2:30 AM and decided to do a complete hook up including sewer hookups. Folks please don’t do this, it’s probably the rudest thing you can do at a campground. If you pull in late at night just bump out your rooms and call it an evening.
Since the weather didn’t cooperate, it was a few days of being cooped up in the RV. All three of us were fine with that. The last day we were there we watched a marathon of “Going RV” on TV. It was a nice way to escape the generally cruddy weather.
This is a nice KOA, and I wouldn’t have a problem staying here for a few days. It’s well maintained, the people are friendly, and it’s quiet at night.
We left on Sunday at about 11:00 AM and dropped the Imagine off at United RV near Fort Worth. Now the real work begins with repairing a number of things that were done incorrectly on the roof.
As for Eva, I’m pretty sure that camping won’t be an issue except for the first hour of travel. Once she gets in a groove she is just fine. That’s a good thing, because we’ve got a lot of camping scheduled this year.
Stay tuned for a follow up on the roof!
Leave a Reply