Filling in the June Gap in My Blog - Saturday, June 5, 2021

It is Thursday, July 22, and it's time to play "catch up" in my blog. This will be the beginning of our five-week, 5th wheel RV trip to Madison, Wisconsin, for the American Volkssport Association Convention. 

Planning for this trip started in October 2020. With a large 5th wheel, it is essential to book your main campgrounds ASAP. For us, that meant we needed to reserve the William G. Lunney Lake Farm Park Campground in Madison, Wisconsin, when the reservation season opened: November 2, 2020. 

The reasons this campground reservation was important to us are: (1) it is very close to downtown Madison where the convention walks take place, (2) it doesn't have many sites, (3) it is situated in the midst of multiple bike trails, AND (4) this would be for the week around the 4th of July holiday. 

At 12:01 a.m. Central Time, November 2, 2020, I made our online reservations for the campground. We were able to secure a pull-through site that had access to water. All sites have electricity. Score!

Other planning for the trip included how much time we would take for our travel (five weeks), which walks and sights we would see, investigating campgrounds near those walks/sights, and making the campground reservations. 

Since the pandemic, more people took up RVing and campgrounds were filling up fast. Some people don't make reservations ahead of time; however, we do. Before we left on our trip, we had reservations for every night along the way. I make an Excel spreadsheet to keep it all organized.

A motto in the RVing world is that our plans are made in Jell-o." This translates into being flexible because things are bound to change. 

We store our 5th wheel at the RV park where we live. When we get ready to travel, we pull our rig out of storage, rent a site in the RV park near our home, and schlep the things we'll need from home to the 5th wheel. This takes a lot of trips back and forth!

A few days before this trip, we were notified by Lofer's Bend East COE Park that our reservation for our first night of camping had been canceled. Due to all the rain Texas had, our site in the park was flooded. So, plans made Jell-o, we decided to travel a number of hours farther and camp at Fun Town RV Park at WinStar Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma. The bonus to that was, if we signed up for a players card, our first night was free! 

When we got up on the morning of our first day, Sunnie (our cat) was throwing up foamy stuff on our runner carpets. We cleaned up after him, worried about how he was going to do on the trip. At 9:00 a.m., we were off to Oklahoma.

Rain and thunderstorms were in the forecast all day. They didn't catch up with us until we were two miles from the casino's RV park. Then the skies opened up and rain poured down upon us. 

When we got to the RV park at 4:00 p.m., I was the lucky one to go out in the storm to register in the office. Even with my umbrella, I got wet!

Fun Star RV Park at WinStar Casino.

This is our site at Fun Star.

WinStar Casino's water tower.

Looking down the RV park row.

Our site was a large, easy pull-through with full hook-ups. We sat in the truck for a few minutes, the storm passed, and we were able to set up the 5th wheel for the night. We didn't unhook the truck. I had made a large pot of chili at home and we had chili for dinner tonight.

Bob wanted to go for a walk to explore the casino. He was gone a long time. This is one of the largest casinos in the world! He had to ask someone for directions to get back to the RV park. We highly recommend this RV park. It is easy on and off to I-35 at the southern border of Oklahoma.

A small part of WinStar
Casino in Oklahoma.

Tomorrow, we are off to Wichita, Kansas.