Aspen5

We're back! We had a great time and can and a few more memories to our camping album. I'd like to share some of our experiences/findings with the rest of you, and I'll try not to be long winded.

Fairfield Lake SP: First off, it's a five hour trip from San Antonio. That includes one restroom stop and one fuel stop. About two hours at a time is all my wife and sons can take without stopping. We arrived around 1:00 P.M. on Monday, and there was only one pull-thru spot left so we took it sight unseen. We learned a lesson in "pull-thru" spots - not all pull-thru's are created equal. We could pull into, but not pull thru due to the size of our rig. These sites varied in their layout by the size of the radius. The larger the radius, the larger the rig it can handle. Our's might have worked, but there was a railroad tie retaining wall on the inside edge that prevented the truck from swinging wide enough to actually pull thru. Other sites had trees blocking the use of a slide. We stayed in #78, a nice sight but your door opens away from the lake. I would recommend getting one on the lake side of the road, that way you could sit under your awning and watch the sunset over the lake. The lake front sites aren't as far from the water as the map would have you believe, probably about 25 to 30 yards. Mountain biking was good. Nothing radical and no rocks, the boys loved it. Fishing from the bank yielded one bass about 3/4 pound. The people with boats looked like they were doing much better, so if you have one, bring it. Now the important item - restrooms/showers. The restrooms were alright, not the best by state park standards, and if you wanted a hot/warm shower you had to go during the day. I don't know if they were solar heated or what, but after dark there was no hot water. Overall I would say that we would stay again at Fairfield Lake SP but the five hour travel time from home would probably make us pick another park a little closer to home. I'll give an update on Rusk SP on my next post.