Settled for Christmas

Saturday, December 15, 2007 -- Sandollar RV Park in Rockport, TX

A few weeks ago, on a recommendation from someone we trust, we booked the Sandollar Resort in Rockport for three weeks during Christmas and New Years. Not knowing how fast things book up over the holidays -- or how booked they already might be -- we rolled the dice, made reservations, and despite never having laid eyes on the place we hoped it'd be that perfect "homey" place to be for Christmas.

We arrived in Rockport a few days early. Even though it may have been possible to move in at Sandollar early, we thought it'd be good to try another place for the experience. Based mostly on internet research we decided to try Drifters Resort. We arrived there Tuesday and found it to be an excellent RV park, only three years old, small but very well done. With both cabins and RV sites, it's a friendly place filled with genuine and outgoing people who didn't even wait for us to back into our site before coming over and introducing themselves. Many of these people are from the midwest -- Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan -- and like almost everyone down here from the north at this time of the year, they're looking to escape Winter. Many of them arrive in October or November and stay until April. You just can't beat Midwesterners!

After three days at Drifters we felt like one of the gang. We knew most of the people on our end of the park on a first name basis and had long conversations with many of them. But, alas, it was time to go and get set up at Sandollar. So we said our good-byes. This is a place we could easily come back to and spend more time. Maybe next year?

At Sandollar Resort the bus is parked in a nice spot under a large live oak tree. "Live oak" is a general term for a number of different oaks throughout the southern U.S. that share the characteristic of evergreen foliage. While other oak trees have shed their leaves, live oaks are still full of green foliage. The gnarly, tough, resilient live oak wood was highly valued by shipbuilders of the 18th and 19th century because it was more resistant to cannon balls. I don't think we have to worry about cannon fire here at Sandollar. I'll get a picture up on the home page later today.

So here we are for the holidays. The neighbors here are as nice, and friendly, as the ones at at Drifters. They have a nightly "happy hour" that I attended last night... just a short get-together every night at 4 or 5pm to chat and tell stories. They're also planning Christmas dinner for everyone in the park. Dar's busy getting the bus decorated. She's happy with the choice we made for Christmas this year.

T