Lake Tawakoni SP - Wild Texas Forums: Parks, Travel & Recreation

TexasCamper_01 · 04-16-2008, 12:11 PM

We went to Lake Tawakoni SP this past weekend. We were going to go to Daingerfield SP but my 5 year old had a soccer game on Saturday so we chose Tawakoni instead since it was only 50 minutes away instead of 2 hours and we didn't want to get up that early or make that long of a roundtrip drive. Anyway, we had a good time and the park was a nice place. They had a fishing tournament going on so I don't know if the park was full mainly because of that or if it is just that time of the year. The restroom and shower facilities were kept clean and in good shape (some have just been rebuilt). I felt like the sites were closer together than some of the other parks we have been to. We arrived around 7:30 pm and the office was already closed. I thought that was odd since it was Friday, but whatever. We had transfered our reservation from Daingerfield to Tawakoni so I knew we had a spot reserved. What I did not know is that they had assigned spots to those with reservations so people coming in without reservations would not fill all the spots. Needless to say just about the time I got out travel trailer hooked up, someone stopped at the campsite we had chosen and said asked if that was where I supposed to be. I told them that I had reservations and that I thought that the parks were first come first serve. He told me that this is true but there was a sign I had missed on the door to the office with assigned spots. He gave me his last name and asked if I would go look and see what spot had my name on it and he would just take my spot so I would not have to move (that was very nice of him) and we could just square it away with the park in the morning (make sure they knew we had swapped spots) so there would be no confusion. Other than that, we had a really good time. One thing the park does not have is a playgroung area which we were disappointed at since our kids range from 3 to 8. That is ok as we found plenty of other things to for them to do and they really enjoy riding their bikes and scooters anyway. We did go fishing in a pond they had since it was so widy and my kids had more fun playing with the minnows and worms than they did actually fishing. Hope everyone is doing well and having as good of a time camping as my family is.

almitra · 04-16-2008, 01:01 PM

Great review and good to know about the playground.

srds · 04-16-2008, 01:59 PM

Great post,thanks for sharing.Man they close early,thanks for letting us know about sign in assignment , never heard of that before,will have to remember that.

srds

Have Fun

Troop198 · 04-16-2008, 04:43 PM

Just curious what you thought of the new single unisex shower/restrooms?
Did lines of girls form? For those who have not seem them its one fairly sized room with toilet, sink, bench and shower all in one. The have a pod of four seperate "rooms" in one building.

No offense but seems that park showers attract younger girls all at once

We have a camper and like that park

We also typically park closer to the lake and the bigger restroom and use their showers. At times that park is underused compared to others near to Dallas.

Closer than Daingerfield is Cooper South our favorite

try it for summer fun, yes it has a playground right by the beach.

Never have seen that assigned space part and we typically arrive late.

campermom · 04-16-2008, 09:26 PM

We've encountered assigned sites after hours only at Davis Mountains. There were individual park maps folded up, on a board at the gate with your name written on it, and a line drawn to guide you to your site. Maybe this works well for parks with less staff/hosts. I could also see how this would be helpful when the park is nearly full. You can avoid driving through the entire park, blinding everyone with your headlights, searching for a site. You can go right to an empty site and make camp.

Davis also has a unisex/ADA shower. I appreciate it since I won't let my son use the men's shower alone. Most mothers don't object to him coming in the ladies room. He's not a peeper.....yet. We try to shower during off hours to avoid the crowd and get hot water.

We've not been up that far yet but it's good to know what those parks are like for future reference.

MissionCamper · 04-16-2008, 11:35 PM

We've experienced the late arrival site assignments -- usually posted on the window of the park HQ greeter booth. Latest I recall their being open was 8pm, but they've all cut back on hours. Some parks now close their HQ at 5pm.

Now, if they'd only allow site specific reservations, some of these problems would be solved. I'm all for supporting the parks system, but this is one area that has always bothered me. No, instead, I (and everyone else) are forced to race each another to the park on Friday afternoon in the hopes of getting that ideal site. Site specific reservations are definitely an advantage of the COE parks in my area.

almitra · 04-18-2008, 11:08 AM

I got to make my first site specific ressie at the St. Andrews SP in Fla for Oct---nice to be able to book THE sport you really want!