State Fair of Texas - Fair Grounds RV lot

State Fair Park Grounds

Dallas, TX
Texas vs OU Weekend
October 16 -18, 2009


With a family of six, it's hard to travel and stay in just one hotel room. Booking two hotel rooms during Texas-OU weekend, can get quite expensive. So, when a buddy of mine decided to take his RV and not mess with hotels, he had my attention. Turns out, he did his homework, and we set out on a new adventure that could turn into a new tradition. His plan was so smart, that we had another family join as well.

The State Fair RV lot is just a 5 minute tram ride to the front gates. Yep, no taxis or bumper to bumper hour long traffic jams.

The State Fair RV lot is well protected with around the clock security and with hundreds of high end (million dollar?) custom RVs.

I was a little worried about camping in this part of Dallas. But it turned out great. The only scare I had was with a couple of young drunk OU fans that wanted to rumble very late one night and it really wasn't much of a scare.


The fair ground lot only had electrical hookups so I filled up with water at Cedar Hills State Park.

The kids had a great time at the fair. They rode most of the rides, sampled most of the fried food (State Fair tradition) and enjoyed some of the livestock shows.

The Longhorns won the game. They beat the gooners in an ugly game. So, Mom & Dad had a great time at the fair as well!

Pros
- Around the clock security
- very friendly crowd (even some of the OU people)
- no taxis, hotels, or traffic. A little traffic getting to the gate and getting our spots (but the que went fast).
- Close to the fair ground gates (short tram ride)

Cons
- Some sections didn't have electrical hookups so some RVs had downlevel noisy generators running.
- We left early to avoid the que. So, we didn't experience any line, but I imagine there was one later in the day when people were leaving.
- no water hookups or dumps station.

Cedar Hill State Park

Cedar Hill State Park
Cedar Hill, TX (outside of Dallas)
Oct 15, 2009



Sorry no pictures for this campsite. We only spend several hours here on our trip to the Texas State Fair. We were caravaning with two other RVers and wanted to arrive on the Fair Grounds as early as possible. The fair ground RV gates opened at 7:00 a.m., so instead of driving all night we decided to leave Austin early, spend the night outside of Dallas at this State Park and wake up early and take the twenty minute drive to the fair.

We had a few hiccups, but the plan worked well. The only downside was not being able to explore this gigantic state park. We didn't even unhook our RVs, just hooked up power. We arrived right when the gates were closing and left before sunrise. We all had paid reservations and called ahead to report that we were on our way and were going to be close to arriving at closing time. Rather then mess with any paperwork, they just waved us in.

This park has over 300 camping sites and they all have water and electric. There are four sections with about 50-70 spots in each. We stayed in the Lakeview camping area. We were not able to see much of the park or even Joe Pool Lake. However, the RV spot was a decent sized paved and level pad. It had a covered picnic table area down an embankment behind the pad. Each spot was large and had lots of privacy. We couldn't see if our fellow RVers and they had the spots next to us on each side.


I can't give this park a rating since we didn't get to see much of it.

Pros
Close to Dallas

Huge park with over 300 camping sites

Large spots with lots of privacy

Covered picnic tables

Close to Walmart and gas stations