Has anyone stayed at Waco TX fairgrounds (Extraco event center) ?

[Suz333]

We’re relatively new to RV’ing, and are heading to our 1st ever rally. Up until now, most of our camping has been at the place five miles from our house, plus one trip to a state campground two hours away.

We’ll be headed to Texas soon… over 800 miles away. The rally (at the Waco fairgrounds, aka Extraco Event Center) is for the eclipse, and I only have full hook-ups for the 1st three nights, and water/electric for the 4 nights that are the rally weekend (my waitlist does not seem to have come thru.) I wasn’t too worried about it because we didn’t have sewer hookups at the state park last year for a week long trip, and we were fine using the bathhouse during the day, and the rv toilet at night.

It has suddenly occurred to me that there might not be showers at the fairground, and my spouse likes to stand under the spray until the hot water runs out, so I need to figure this out. They’ll have a tank truck come twice during the rally, but not sure about the 1st 3 nights. We’re trying to decide if we want to just camp the whole week with partial hookups to avoid moving 3 days in, but we need to shower! (One of the main reasons to get there early is because we don’t want to struggle with the super tight parking, so want to get there before it’s super full.)

I can’t find any real details about the rv situation, and am wondering if anyone has stayed there with their rv before. I’m stressing a lot about this trip, but I’m reminding myself that after this, it will be a lot less daunting to head to Ft Wilderness, so that’s my silver lining.

Thanks in advance for any information, and if anyone wants to offer general rally advice, or cautions, feel free!

 

[happycamper47]

If it's the Heart of Texas Fairgrounds on Bosque Blvd, yes they have showers.

 

[Teamubr]

What kind of camper do you have? While I couldn't take long shows in my old 5th wheels, if I used the water cutoff on the shower head between getting wet, lathering up and rinsing off, I could go at least 3 or 4 days. Probably longer, but I don't remember. My motorhome now has really large holding tanks and I can boondock for at least a week if I make a little effort to conserve water use. I can carry 100 gallons of fresh water, but it is the gray tank that limits me.

j

 

[Suz333]

THANK YOU, happycamper47, that’s the place! One less item to stress about! (Now if I can just figure out how to not stress about traveling to tornado alley in tornado season!)

Teamubr, yeah, the gray tank is the issue. We have a Grand Design Reflection 28BH, and the holding tank is 43 gallons. So, we can eke out about 3 showers if two of them are mine. If my spouse has two, then I’m standing in water half way through on mine!

This is our 1st long trip. We camped for two weeks March 2023, but it was at the place close to us, and I drove home everyday to work from my home office, so we didn’t have to have 2 weeks worth of everything.

The silver lining about the sites being teensy is that we’re kicking out a lot of stuff from the bays, since there’s no need for solo stove, hammocks, bug tents, etc. We wouldn’t bother with them on our 1-night stays heading there and back, and I don’t think there will be enough room to use them at the fairground. So, extra linens and clothes can go in the bay, and later the dirty stuff can go down there. There’s a decent amount of storage in the bedroom, but if I don’t bring extra then Murphy’s law will make sure that the cat throws up on the bed or something similar!

 

[Teamubr]

Teamubr, yeah, the gray tank is the issue. We have a Grand Design Reflection 28BH, and the holding tank is 43 gallons. So, we can eke out about 3 showers if two of them are mine. If my spouse has two, then I’m standing in water half way through on mine!

My motorhome has a 75 gallon gray and that will only get me 5 days or so. I've never actually filled it completely, but I know that one is the limiting factor. 43 gallons would go quick.

j

 

[rideswithchrist]

The weather will be fine in Texas, May is when we tend to get any tornados.If you are coming down I35 (which I assume you will) there are quite a few safety rest stops that are tornado shelters in the areas that get it bad if you want to look for those ahead of time just to have a heads up and a place to stop over.

We always have baby wipes in the bathroom to freshen up in case showers are rare or because TX is hot and we get sweaty.

Enjoy the eclipse! Our home is in the path of totality but only for 1minute, so we are driving to my sister's in Bandera so we can see it for 4 minutes!

 

[Suz333]

Thanks everyone for your help!

We made it safely on Tuesday, and are getting to share someone’s sewer, so we get to take showers in our own bathroom- yay!

With one exception, everyone we’ve met along the way and here has been super nice, and we’re having a great time. All the friendly people are helping to take away the sting of the weather report, which shows cloudy weather on the eclipse day. (I’m currently ignoring the thunderstorm threat that seems to want to travel back east with us.)

We stayed at pull-thrus on our stops along the route, and wow, that was so much easier! We usually book back in sites because they have better views at our local campground, but those pull throughs really make it easier when we’re just traveling through.

One less-happy lesson … we got to experience the death wobble in our F350 after a particularly egregious bridge-to-road transition (i.e. “pothole”) in Louisiana. THAT was scary. Between that, the broken tpms, and one cat throwing up, and another one pooing, I hope we’re done with the misadventures part of our trip. (Cats were in their carriers, so clean up wasn’t too too difficult, but finding a rest stop became rather urgent!)

Stay safe and have fun

 

[rideswithchrist]

@Suz333 how was the eclipse?! We ended up in Bandera at my sister's house and it was clouded over
If we would have stayed home in Buda, we would have seen the whole thing.

 

[Suz333]

@Suz333 how was the eclipse?! We ended up in Bandera at my sister's house and it was clouded over
If we would have stayed home in Buda, we would have seen the whole thing.

It was really good! At the very beginning of the partial eclipse it was clouded over, but within 5 - 10 minutes the clouds started breaking up occasionally. I think we got at least 2 or 3 minutes of visible totality.

I was already super grateful to see the eclipse, and the trip home was awful, so I’m glad it was worth it. 2 more death wobbles, a flooded campground (we had to go buy rain boots), 4 bio spills for the cats in 1 day, wind gusts up to 41 mph, tornado watch, and then we left too late yesterday from Alabama and hit Atlanta in time for Friday afternoon rush hour. 2 accidents and a few reroutes for the gps added almost 90 minutes to the eta. Basically, we will never again travel more than one overnight away in the rv, until we retire and can spend multiple days at each stop. (We drove on 8 out of 14 days, and by the end it’s a toss up if we or the cats were the most miserable.)



Here’s a total eclipse through the cloud picture, which turned out better than the no-cloud but used the filter over the phone picture.

 

[2goofycampers]

Oh my, that was a rough trip. Things have to get better from here on out.

 

[rideswithchrist]

I am so sorry for a rough trip. We have 4 kids so it always takes us so much longer than we expect it to. We have thought about getting a motorhome or skoolie so my hubby can work while we drive, but that is not in our immediate future.

I am glad you got to see totality though, I was thinking of you when our 2 hour drive got clouded over and I told my hubby that some people came to Texas for this. Glad it was not a total bust for you, even if it was terribly rough heading back. Our cat does not come with us because she and the black dog do not get along and she would likely escape our camper to go outside. (I recently blogged about it one reason we are not full-timers)