2022-09-27 A Visit to Palestine Texas

 Tuesday found us heading over to Palestine Texas. That's where the famous Texas State Railroad leaves from and heads to Rusk TX on a round trip journey. I took my son and grandkids several years ago. It was a fun trip but only runs on the weekend right now. We drove out to check out the depot but that was closed too. At one time, there was an RV park but it is gone back to nature these days.

Unfortunately, we also found out that Old Town Palestine is only open Friday through Sunday as well.

This looked interesting for another time. We could only look in the window.

This popular pub looked like it might be opening about lunch time but we weren't in the mood for that.

There were a couple of guys sitting outside of the Cream & Coffee but don't know if it was actually open. Wells Creek was definitely not open. The upside of fall travel during the week especially is fewer tourists......the downside is fewer tourists so less places open.

We went to downtown Palestine but there is not a lot there and again not a lot open. I kept thinking that there was a lot there from when I visited with kids until it dawned on me that we stayed at a small park outside of Palestine but we drove over to Nacogdoches. Duh! We finally went into Old Magnolia which is an antique shop that also has a small cafe. The food was good so it wasn't a total loss. We didn't walk out with an any buys but they had some neat stuff.

We also saw this beautiful church. Whether it's your choice of religion or not, you can always enjoy the beautiful architecture.

Back to Salmon Lake for a relaxing afternoon and nice dinner outside on the picnic table overlooking the lake. Did you miss that post? You will want to check out the park atmosphere for sure.

2022-09-26 Salmon Lake RV Park Large Rental Hall.

 This post is primarily a review of the largest rental hall at Salmon Lake. It is made from two churches joined together allowing a very large area that can hold up to 200. For a rally, those RV sites closest to the building area would be used. 

This is the front part of the combined buildings.

This is the back side area but it is all open between the areas.

This is the stage area.

The kitchen is not huge but it has a stove and two fridges plus a long counter area. There is also a counter with a large double sink.

There is also a microwave.

While the rest of the park has only one bathhouse with toilets, this building has two bathrooms with showers plus a family bathroom which would be available 24 hours a day to those with the rally group.

These are RV sites closest to the building. You can pull all the way through from each side so the hookups are at the rear of each RV. This leaves an open area between each RV so they are not as close together as it would appear.

The oldest hookups look like this but have both 30 and 50 amp hookups.

In summary, the park is rustic but very interesting. The rally hall is good. There are also cabins available. The staff is friendly and accomodating. See my last post for the cabins and rest of the park.

I missed these buildings in my last post and didn't want to leave them out.

Now that we are settled in, we are off to tour other nearby towns and sites.

2022-09-26 Salmon Lake RV Park in Grapeland TX

Monday about 11:00AM we headed south to Grapeland TX to the Salmon Lake RV Park. It was mentioned on other social media as a good place to hold larger rallies and our Texas Ramblin' Roses Chapter of RVing Women is always looking for a big enough place for our annual meeting.

On our way south, Elaine and I stopped by the Songbird RV Park in Elkhart TX to say hi to Cynthia, another RVing Women member that owns the park (see my earlier post). I wanted to show Elaine the park and to see how the development of the new sites was going.  The plumber has already been there to lay out where the sewer connections will go. 

On to Salmon Lake right outside the small town of Grapeland.

The park is a family owned park that has been around for a long time. It's rustic and charming. The brochure says "Drenched in old world charm with a dash of modern convenience, Salmon Lake Park is dedicated to providing its guests with family friendly recreational activities." The have many RV sites both 30 and 50 amp, many with sewer hookups. They also have cabins and a swimming lake. There are also many old western buildings and antique cars, trucks, and farm equipment. We were here early fall and during the week so it was very quiet. I'm sure it is rocking during the summer as they also have many visitors that come for the day to swim and picnic.

Let's start with the old buildings and vehicles out near the front check-in and then on through the park.

They were repainting this engine.

Based on the upper floor decorations, we thought that some of the staff or family must live up there. There was a separate large family house off to one side as well as some RVs that may have been family or staff as well.

This bus definitely hasn't been used in quite some time.

Some buildings were open to go in while others were not.

Blacksmith shop.

This was a small meeting room they rent out for events.

They have one bunkhouse that sleeps 20 so this may possibly be it.

Some buildings were more up to date than others.

This may be the only bathhouse for the park other than the cabins that do have bathrooms. It was very nice inside with a number of toilets and showers on each side.

This is the largest pavilion available. It is labeled as the stable.

There are many cabins of varying sizes and located in different areas of the park. They are rustic and unique.

The park is well known for a very large jazz festival held every year. The weekend after we left there was going to be a Russian music festival. They have a stage with audience sitting on the hillside in front. There is also a treehouse where you can see the stage.

There is a popular swimming lake with a huge slide into the water. I didn't get a picture of the beach area. While we were there, an older man came two different days and swam around the lake.

These views of the slide and lake were actually taken from the RV sites where Elaine and I were parked.

When we arrived at the park, I unhooked the car and we drove around to see where we wanted to park the RVs. They told us we could park anywhere we wanted. I imagine that when they are busier, they at least assign an area where they knew there were emptied spots. The sites are all on grass. And there is sand. The rows of sites look very tight in some areas but you can pull through with every 

RV in the row alternating the direction so when you pull through the hookups are at the back and you have an empty area on each side. Some of the hookups are short and older while some have been replaced with taller more modern posts.

We chose to park above the lake. It was wonderful but I would not want to park there in the busy summer with all the day people coming to use the lake. We parked going opposite directions so we had a nice area with a picnic table between us. Too bad I didn't get a picture of our sites.

The next post will show the largest hall you can rent and the facilities inside.