TexasCHLforum.com

Oldgringo wrote:

chasfm11 wrote:

carlson1 wrote:I have been in several Texas parks that say "No Firearms."

Beavers Bend in Broken Bow has a "No Firearms" sign also.

My comment was directed at an apparent conversation that took place. I, too, have seen do firearm signs but no one has ever asked me about nor threatened me about the consequences from one. Signs are one thing but bringing up the matter verbally seemed a little strange.

At the risk of further chastisement, I say this, "concealed is concealed". Common sense and good judgment come into play, OK and MT are OC states; however, if you go waving your gun around and or otherwise acting a fool, you will get some attention. If you're doing that in my park, I will call the sheriff...endelè pronto.

Agreed. And that was my point. If I'm simply a camper who shows up at a park and doesn't mention guns in anyway (and I never have and never will), I'm curious about any event where someone else would bring the subject into a conversation. OTOH, if I were silly enough to bring it up (again, I'm not), I wouldn't at all be surprised about the reaction of the other party. I like Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

We've seen our share of RV parks that were run by control freaks. There are more rules than campers. I've been lectured (in advance) about all the things that I'm not supposed to do while I'm there. I've just never run into one of those that even gave firearms a passing mention.

carlson1 wrote:I have been in several Texas parks that say "No Firearms."

Beavers Bend in Broken Bow has a "No Firearms" sign also.

My comment was directed at an apparent conversation that took place. I, too, have seen do firearm signs but no one has ever asked me about nor threatened me about the consequences from one. Signs are one thing but bringing up the matter verbally seemed a little strange.

burell wrote:we are nearly full time Rv'ers. My job takes me a lot of places. Been in Texas for 2 years now. Probably at least one more year before the chance opens up that I move again. We have a 43' Open Range. I have not had much trouble with the parks and carrying my guns with me. One park warned me that no matter my fault or not I would be asked to leave if an incident occurred and it became public knowledge of my guns in the park.

I would be curious to know about that situation. We have been in a lot of places in many States and no one has mentioned firearms at any of the campgrounds. Based on threads in a couple of the RV forums, it appears pretty common that RVers have 'em - unless they are Canadian snow birds of course.

cb1000rider wrote:

chasfm11 wrote:[Having just gone through a bout of technical difficulties with our Norcold 'fridge in our RV, I remember talking to others who were sailboat refrigerator mechanics first and sailors second.

Call that refrigerator by it's appropriate name: Never-cold. Knock on wood, I've only had one issue with the ones that I've owned.


Lots of issues with RVs and firearm ownership. That's for sure.

Sailors - open seas, you guys have my respect... Amazing lifestyle and to brave the ocean internationally is amazing. I'd like to acquire those skills one day.

At least the Norcold don't have quite the history of catching fire that the Dometics do. I won't drift this thread further (I'm sure that Old Gringo is hovering nearby) by getting into the vagaries of RV electronics and their repair. My problem turned out to be a manufacturing defect - like about every other problem we've had in the going on 10 years that we've owned this RV. I have a buddy who just bought an upscale Thor motor home and he has manufacturing defect issues, too.

I'm not much of a blue water sailor. I sailed the Chesapeake and Long Island Sound, which can both be rough in their own rights but I haven't ventured far into the Atlantic. One of my bucket list items is to sail the Sir Francis Drake Channel and that would put me in the International environment. Honestly, I'd rather risk British customs with a firearm than to dock in MD or Norwalk, CT as we used to do with one. I will say that unless you are suspected of drug smuggling, the chances of getting a sailboat boarded and searched are pretty remote, just about like an RV in most States. There were stories of some older couples using RVs to to ferry drugs across State lines but there are very few stories on any of the RV boards about LE stopping RVs for that reason. Most RV traffic stops are for the same problems as people on this board - their lead feet. That's probably why the many people with RVs who carry firearms into "illegal" situations aren't discovered. I would really have to be working at it to break speed laws with our RV.

So who is going to be the first to propose a date and location for a CHL RV rally? We are coming into some beautiful camping weather and I've just scored some additional ammo at Wal-Mart that I'd like to send downrange.

Oldgringo wrote:

bizarrenormality wrote:They're recreational. They're vehicles.

Actually, there are a lot of similarities between sailboats and RVs. Having just gone through a bout of technical difficulties with our Norcold 'fridge in our RV, I remember talking to others who were sailboat refrigerator mechanics first and sailors second.

From a more forum related perspective, sailboats, particularly those with access to International waters present a set of rather interesting problems for gun owners. Having one or not is a very black and white issue. There is no going back to your car to stash it if you end up some place where they are forbidden. There are a lot of "don't ask, don't tell" situations since sailboats are vulnerable to just about anything out on open water. It a search were conducted on sailboats, there are a fair number of sailboat owners who would be arrested for gun possession violations.

RVs are more the same than many care to admit. One of the reasons that the RV forums often prohibit gun related threads is that holy wars develop over whether RVers should have the right to defend themselves. We on the forum and concealed handgun license holders in general across the country probably understand that there is complicated maze of gun laws across the States. Many RVers who have guns are not concealed license holders and mistakenly believe that the house portion of their RV will not be treated as a vehicle. Sometimes it is not. The Texas open container law, for example, does not apply to the house portion of an RV but that is pretty well spelled out. In other States, not so much. The conventional "wisdom" is that a shotgun on board an RV is legal in most places where a handgun might not be and that was the route that we went for many years. But that misses the point of Corp of Engineers land and the problems with that are not limited to Texas. Lake Hartwell near the Georgia/South Carolina boarder has a great COE RV facility that some might visit with firearms on board. It also misses the point about States like NJ and NY. There are a lot of RVers who are similarly in don't ask, don't tell positions with firearms. The general RVing public seems to have very limited awareness and often more limited regard for fireams laws.

It is said that a sailboat is a hole in the water into which one pours money. In many cases, RVs simply relocate that hole to dry land.

Dadtodabone wrote:I had a 38' RV * without wheels. It took us to magical places, provided lots of thrills and quite a few chills. One day I looked at it and said to myself "I'm to old for this stuff!" and sold it.
I'm itching to move around a bit though, maybe I'll look into one of these wheeled thingies now.

* recreational vessel. Baltic 38, "Miss Direction"

We never owned anything that big but did charters (Oday 35, Bristol 40, Bristol 41.1). The land variety don't get quite as bumpy but rough weather still can be beyond exciting. The ranger at the Great Salt Plains SP in OK warned us to head for the bathhouse if the sirens went off. Off shore thunderstorms and OK tornadoes are definitely not on my list of fun places to be.

At least with an RV, you won't have to worry about dragging anchor in the middle of the night when the wind changes.

cb1000rider wrote:

fickman wrote: I had quit posting over there for years due to some fascist moderators, but it seems to have loosened up a little. I've even seen a couple (rare, and innocuous) gun threads survive. . . but don't count on it. lol A few years ago, homeschooling was even too hot of a topic to survive. Still, the technical info and knowledge about destinations have kept me around.

Gun threads get squashed over there. Political threads get squashed over here... Choose your poison!

I'll take the moderating here to RV.NET I have nearly 5K posts there and enjoyed being part of it for a long time. There was a great exchange of knowledgeable people on a wide variety of subjects. And then a lot of the knowledgeable people where driven off and it wasn't useful to spend time reading there any more for me. I also frequent IRV2.Com where I just crossed the 2K post threshold. I was part of a number of gun related threads there but the moderating wasn't always handled well and they deteriorated. The anti-gun Canadians always seemed to wade in deep. Now, there are no more gun threads and they really keep a lid on any political references. It remains my go to spot for RV information because there are still a lot of experienced RVers there. Both RV.NET (Affinity group including Camping World) and IRV2.COM are commercial ventures, unlike here. Moderation when someone is playing with the company's paycheck takes a different slant.

RVs are complex beasts but thankfully there are a lot of common areas. Trailers of all types and motor homes share a lot of the same or vary similar appliances and the people with $300K motor homes have some of the same problems with those appliances as the guy with a single axle trailer. I like getting the different perspectives between the weekend RVer and the full timers about the same camping areas or routes to take. I do all my own maintenance and repairs so I need sources of people who have had some to the same problems that I'm trying to solve. I never would have gotten through tearing out the skylight over our shower and having rebuild a lot of the surrounding area before putting down almost 20 square feet of new rubber roof without a lot of help.

I would hate to see the sources for that RV information corrupted by folks with an axe to grind that had nothing to do with using and maintaining RVs, either from the users or from the moderators. That doesn't happen here.

kragluver wrote:We have a travel trailer and love to camp with our family. We recently sold a Palomino and purchased a Keystone Outback. We like camping in West Texas, New Mexico and Arkansas (Ouachita state park).

Petit Jean is another great place in Arkansas. One of the entrances roads has an interesting hill but the park is nice. The hiking trails offer a lot of variety.

The only West Texas SP that we've been in is Palo Duro Canyon. That entrance road is not for the faint of heart (10% grade with a hairpin at the bottom of the longest, steepest part) but the scenery is wonderful. We missed the outdoor theater show but it is supposed be really good.

carlson1 wrote:Has anyone stayed in Beavers Bend State Park in Broken Bow, OK. You can set up right on the river. They put trout in at the dam every Thursday.

We've been to Beaver's Bend and it a wonderful setting. The bad part was that the corrupt camp hosts violated all of the State's rules and ran the park as their own fiefdom. Long term residents (the State max is 14 days) had taken over all of the river view sites and with no reservation system, you run the risk of driving there and not being able to get in at all. This is in sharp contrast to Lake Murray, another OK State Park, where hosts were not out of control. There were a lot of complaints and I hope that the issue has been resolved.

In addition to the fishing, it is fun to hear the horns sound when they open up the water on the dam and the river rises significantly in just a few minutes.

We've never seen a similar problem in the Texas State Parks.

I'm in. My wife and I have a motor home and drag a car. We did a 2,400 mile trip to South Dakota in August but we generally camp in TX and OK.

It might be nice to find an RV park where there is a decent range nearby. I have a buddy in VA who leads a square dance club that is all RVers and they find campgrounds with buildings for their dancing. There is no reason why we couldn't try to same thing but with gun ranges.

Their setup is that they camp once a month and each member takes a turn setting up with a campground. Even it we started at once a quarter to judge interest, it might be neat to try.

Charlie