Hiding out in Texas – Getting Ready for The RV Entrepreneur Summit

When we were imaging our road trip from Florida to Texas, we had in our minds we’d be able to squeeze in several 3-4 night stops in awesome places along the way. We’d have time to chill out in wooded campsites, enjoy nature, hiking trails and get some work done too.

Sometimes, the vision doesn’t meet reality – especially when you’re on a time schedule. And 3 weeks just never seems like enough to do it all.

Heck, nearly 12 years on the road and it’s still not enough.

So instead of trying to find several special gems along the way, we opted instead to make miles and focus on finding one awesome spot. And that we did.

First, the video version of this post:

First Segment

And then next, the making miles segment as we transited Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana:

Stop 1: Rainbow Plantation SKP RV Park – Summerdale, AL

We left Topsail Hill Preserve State Park with aims to make it well into Mississippi. We even had our eyes on cutting further north this trip trying to avoid I-10 and Mardis Gras caused booked up campgrounds.

But then we hit traffic in Destin. And our plans for stopping for lunch to catch up with friends and making 200 miles that day were dashed.

We were simply too exhausted after the high social time at the last stop and dropping ourselves back into being ‘visible’ after relative anonymity in the boating world.

And quite honestly we were questioning the sanity of this whole RV trip. Especially as the weather forecasts along the way were diminishing into cold and wet. And intimidation of being ‘on’ for a week at the upcoming summit was building fast.

Were we really up for this with having so little down time since August?

Part of us was yelling ‘TURN AROUND AND GO BACK TO FLORIDA’.

So instead, we called an old favorite just a few miles up the road – Rainbow Plantation, the Escapee’s Park we evacuated to during Hurricane Irma. They happened to have one spot open for the night, and we eagerly booked it.

It was just what we needed to let the wave of emotions flood through us. We talked the angst out.  We got on the phone with Heath & Alyssa (organizers of the summit) to do a sanity check – and they were incredibly supportive of whatever decision we made.

In the morning, we were feeling better and had a new game plan. We were catapulting ourselves to Texas the quickest way possible and finding one spot for an extended stay to recharge at.

The plan also allowed us to meet up with Kyle & Olivia of Drivin’ and Vibin’ after all.

2 Overnight Stops in Louisiana

After lunch with friends, we set our sights on overnight stops on our way to Texas. We picked Slidell, LA which had multiple options at the same exit.

We pulled into Cracker Barrell’s RV lot, had dinner there, got permission to stay overnight and enjoyed a restful stay.

The next evening, we picked a spot just north of Lafayette at a brewery participating in the Harvest Hosts program. Bayou Teche was a great stop where Chris got to sample several yummy IPAs.

Stop 4: Hanks Creek Campground – Huntington, TX

For our ideal extended stay, we were seeking a campground that would be relatively empty, scenic and in nature and had iffy but usable cell signal (so we could test some antennas and boosters). Not a tall order at all.

We did some digging around, and found an Army Corp of Engineers park in East Texas not too far off our path. Recreation.gov shows only a few sites booked at Hanks Creek Campground during our open week, and several sweet looking waterfront sites that would fit the bill.

And top things off, a Campendium review reports usable AT&T but lousy Verizon.

Perfect. We booked for a week and of course arrived on an evening of another government shut down. Thankfully, this time not long enough to halt park services.

It was a delightful week spent in relative isolation. Our site was perfect with a water view. And the entire time we only counted a handful of other campers. (And only one recognized us – thanks for the Valentine’s wine & chocolates guys!).

It was mostly cold and dreary, but that was perfect for getting lots of work done and preps for the summit. We also indulged in extensive video streaming (all in the name of testing internet of course.)

It was good for the soul and exactly what we needed to start recharging our batteries.

Next Segment

Next up, was the final miles into the summit… with a couple stops along the way. Here’s the map:

Stop 1: Messina Hof Winery – Bryan, TX

We selected another Harvest Hosts location, this time at Messina Hof Winery just outside College Station. Since it was the day after V-Day we indulged in a romantic dinner at their onsite restaurant and a tour of the winery.

Not exactly ‘free’ camping – but all and all, it was less than a night at a marina (our entire scale of pricing has definitely changed since boating – RVing is downright cheap no matter how you slice it!).

It was a lovely stop, and I think our first time to have actual vineyards as our view when overnighting at a Harvest Hosts location.

We’re thrilled we managed 3 such overnights on this trip – their new app really makes it so much easier to plan our routes around these unique stays.

Stop 2: Cedar Breaks Campground – Georgetown, TX

Next up was our last pre-planned stay before the summit. We had spotted that the new touring Cirque du Soleil show (on ice!) ‘Crystal’ would be in Cedar Park during our transit – so we planned our route to intersect.

Cedar Breaks is another ACOE park, and we stayed at this same campground nearly 3 years ago, and had enjoyed it – and it was one of the closer options to the show.

We booked 3 nights, and enjoy getting some hiking in and stocking up at a huge HEB grocery store near by. And the show was simply fabulous.

Real Time Update:

We have arrived to the Texas Wine Country at the location of The RV Entrepreneur Summit in Fredericksburg. It’s still only the pre-event hosted by the Xscapers, but it’s already off to a fabulous start!

The official Summit starts on Thursday and goes through the weekend. It is a completely sold out event (so if you’re in the area, don’t plan to be able to stop on by – tickets are required). But they are live streaming the main stage sessions on Facebook for free.

You can get details on that on their Facebook Event Page.

We will presenting on Saturday (the 24th) at 3pm CST on Mobile Internet and sharing a bit of our story of how we found our niche business running the Mobile Internet Resource Center.