Mother Neff State Park -- Day 103

It isn’t very often that I sit down to write about one particular place in which we’ve stayed, and this place will never overcome the awesomeness that is Live Oak park in Ingleside, Texas. However, the serene beauty of this hidden gem deserves a highlight, and after our short nature walk yesterday, I feel compelled to share.

We’ve stayed in quite a few State Parks here in Texas, it’s actually quite an impressive collection of properties. Many of them seem to be around one of the 6,000+ lakes that Texas boasts, and being a person that loves a good sunset over water, I find this to be quite pleasing. Mother Neff is one of the exceptions to that general rule, being situated just outside the sleepy little town of Moody (population: 1377.) Looking at it on the map, it’s just a rectangular patch of green paralleling state highway 236 just after it turns north from the Iron Bridge Wildlife Management Area.

If you had put the state parks in a lineup, or compared them by amenities, Mother Neff probably wouldn’t rate very highly. We just happened upon it because of my 150 Mile Radius Travel Card. (If you have read Day 44 you know what I’m talking about.) I swear it’s the greatest invention that I’ve had since The Technology Box (more on that later.) We had actually discovered this park earlier in our journey (check out Day 62, if you haven’t already) and we had said that we would love to come back. With our new method of deciding our intinerary, we were excited to see that Mother Neff was going to be back on the destinations list.

It’s a quaint little park, with really level concrete pads for your RV, as well as full electric, water, and sewer hookups. There are just enough trees to provide a little privacy, but they are mostly young live oaks and cedars, so there is lots of unobstructed sky to enjoy. Being so far from any major city means the stars are particularly impressive. (I’m humming “Deep in the Heart of Texas" right now.) Yesterday, we explored one of the walking trails through the dense cedar forest and just enjoyed being ALIVE and away from the constant barrage of brick-and-mortar civilization. But then we had to come back, because I couldn’t get a really good LTE signal to send out Snapchats. But it was really pretty!

Mother Neff is a beautiful place. It’s small, compared to other sprawling parks that we’ve experienced, but they make great use of the space. You don’t feel like your neighbors are too close, but you don’t feel like you’re going to get murdered without any witnesses. (I see you, Campsite 7!) The crushed pink granite makes for an interesting ground cover, and clearly delineates the safe zone, so the wild coyotes can’t eat you. At least, that’s what I’m assuming it means, your mileage may vary. Add to all of this the clean, tiled, warm bathrooms with latching shower stall doors (no more accidental shower shows for the fellow campers) and I am really impressed with this place.

Posted by Anya Phenix on Friday, February 5, 2016

I expect a good showing for this place on the next Places We’ve Stayed list, which is due to come out around Day 144, or 123 depending on which formula you’re using to predict. Personally I like rolling the dice.

Before I go, I said I would explain the Technology Box. It’s really a simple invention from the mind of my lovely travel companion. What if there was a way to keep all of the chargers, cables, and devices organized and portable? One thing that living in the RV has taught us is to be more compact and efficient with our things, and since we are heavily reliant on our technology (remember the Data Crisis?) we have lots of chargers, devices and cables to manage. The Technology Box is a modified plastic storage container with an external hard drive and a power strip with all of the chargers plugged in. It also functions as a stand for the Chromebook when it’s plugged into the TV, since the HDMI cable has to be shared with the Playstation. Looking for the controllers for the Playstation? Also in the Technology Box. Simple, genius.

Travel update: We’ll be leaving this majestic place for a little disc golf up in Waco, after which we are heading to Lake Whitney State Park. Our new travel plan is to try to fit a round of disc golf into travel day, so that we don’t have to take the rig out of the campsite after we’ve hooked up. We’ve only done it once so far, but I think I’m going to like this new itinerary. Makes our travel range a little shorter, but increases the frequency of the disc golfing.

It’s all about priorities.