{"id":986,"date":"2012-10-20T08:47:57","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T12:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=986"},"modified":"2012-10-20T10:48:16","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T14:48:16","slug":"livingston-tx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/20\/livingston-tx\/","title":{"rendered":"Livingston, TX"},"content":{"rendered":"

Livingston seems like a nice small Texas town.\u00a0 But we aren’t here to see the town; we are here to see Rainbow’s End, home park of the Escapees RV Club<\/a>, a.k.a. SKP (get it?).\u00a0 This park is open to the public, but clearly caters to Escapees members.\u00a0 The club itself does not promote Rainbow’s End, or any of its other 7 “Rainbow parks” – campgrounds owned by the club – but independent reviews are available (e.g. here<\/a> and here<\/a>).\u00a0 The reviews are not all complimentary and I can see why.\u00a0 Compared to some of our other campgrounds, the facilities were second-rate: a gravel pad (instead of concrete) on our pull-through, no showers or restrooms nearby, an older laundry room, no cable TV, no WiFi in our area, no camp store, a smallish dog park and minimal landscaping.<\/p>\n

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Patience resting at Rainbow’s End<\/p><\/div>\n

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The laundry<\/p><\/div>\n

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The pool<\/p><\/div>\n

We loved it.<\/p>\n

Why? A deep sense of community, of everyone pulling together for the common good, suffuses the place. Everyone we met – from the instant I walked in the office door and found the manager hugging a departing camper – was friendly, helpful and supportive.\u00a0 Social events dotted the calendar.\u00a0 The community supports Livingston charities as well – we helped load trucks with the tables and chairs from the community center that were being loaned to the SPCA for the day for a fundraising event and the annual bake sale in support of the Livingston volunteer fire department (which has provided funding for two trucks and other equipment over the past 20 years) is one of next week’s highlights.\u00a0 Last night we went to an all-you-can eat spaghetti dinner SPCA fundraiser at the local Methodist church and were surprised (though we shouldn’t have been) to find that half the people there were Escapees.\u00a0 We sat with some of them and felt like we belonged.<\/p>\n

Next week is “TexFest”, this year’s name for the annual week-long Octoberfest party.\u00a0 Members are arriving from all over the country to attend.\u00a0 One gets the sense that members use these events as good excuses to get together to renew friendships.\u00a0 We are sorry that we have to leave before the festivities begin.<\/p>\n

Adding to the sense of community is the fact that there are many “permanent” residents of Rainbow’s End.\u00a0 This group includes some long-term residents living in their RVs, but also includes a large number of people who own deeded sites, most of which include a small cottage and a large hanger-like garage for their RV.\u00a0 These people might spend most of their time on the road, but have a place to come home to.<\/p>\n

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Cottage with hanger<\/p><\/div>\n

Some live in one RV and use another to travel.<\/p>\n

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A 2-RV resident<\/p><\/div>\n

There are 128 daily use campsites at Rainbow’s End, but almost 200 deeded sites.<\/p>\n

What else makes Rainbow’s End unique?\u00a0 I have already mentioned SmartWeigh.\u00a0 It is also our mail-forwarding service (yes, we picked up our mail so to our creditors who are reading this: the check is in the mail).\u00a0 Most unique of all, though, is the Care facility.\u00a0 This is basically a nursing facility for aging or disabled RVers.\u00a0 The Care facility (which houses medical facilities as well as an adult daycare room and a larger multi-function room) is surrounded by 38 campsites reserved for RVers needing assistance.\u00a0 If necessary, meals are delivered to them in their RVs.\u00a0 Cost for daily support, including the 3 meals and adult daycare?\u00a0 $650 per month.\u00a0 That works out to about $20 per day for meals and a variety of other non-medical assistance (shopping, etc), provided by volunteers.\u00a0 I assume that medical care is covered separately, mostly under Medicare and I think the RV site has some rent as well, but not much.<\/p>\n

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The Care facility<\/p><\/div>\n

We had breakfast at the Care facility yesterday ($4 for eggs, hashbrowns, grits, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage and toast) and met some of the elderly RVers receiving care there. Jett and I agreed that it was the most cheerful assisted living facility we have ever seen.<\/p>\n

The Escapees RV Club is one of those organizations – like my fraternity – where everyone has a memorized number. During social hour a speaker invariably begins by introducing himself or herself as “I am Jane Doe, 12345”. Jett was impressed when we were asked to introduce ourselves the first night and I could recite our number: 110057. One of the speakers was Kathy, number 3, daughter of the founder. Over 110,000 people have joined since the founding, it seems.<\/p>\n

The Escapees RV Club is also affiliated – loosely – with 11 SKP Co-op parks. These are parks owned and operated by the people – all Escapees – who individually own the sites in the park. Basically, campground condos. The sites are used by the owners when they are there but are available, very inexpensively, to other SKP members when they are elsewhere. I think this is a rather unique arrangement and I hope to try one out sometime, just to see how they work.<\/p>\n

We wish we could have stayed at Rainbow’s End longer, but we must leave today. As we leave we will give everyone the closing that is used at every Rainbow’s End social: “Have a Rainbow day!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Livingston seems like a nice small Texas town.\u00a0 But we aren’t here to see the town; we are here to see Rainbow’s End, home park of the Escapees RV Club, a.k.a. SKP (get it?).\u00a0 This park is open to the public, but clearly caters to Escapees members.\u00a0 The club itself does not promote Rainbow’s End, … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,4,5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gtw","category-places","category-rvparks","category-places-tx"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-fU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1002,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions\/1002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}