A Visit to Escapees - Livingston Texas...

While on the way to Baton Rouge, La we decided that we would take a detour to stop and see what all the whoopla was about the Escapees at Livingston, Texas.  So as we drove through Livingston (a quaint Texas town) we noticed that the park was about six miles outside of town.  I first came across the name Escapees as a mail forwarding service for full time RV'ers. Later I found out they had a park system with 19 parks offering both dry-camping and full hookup sites. Even more impressive was their CARE, Inc. center which provides professional assistance to RVers who live in their own RVs while they recover from illness or injury (now this is a really cool service).
 Now as their web site says... Joe and Kay Peterson had been full-timing for eight years before they started the Escapees RV Club on July 4, 1978 with the first Escapade get-together held in February 1979 in California. Twenty-four families attended. Today two Escapades are held each year, one in the spring and one in the fall with as many as 2,500 member families attending. These events are a week long and offer seminars on RV living for both beginning and veteran RVers.
That brings us back to the story...So we stopped at Rainbow’s End in Livingston, Texas and entered a small building near the entrance.  We spoke with a volunteer at the building who shared with us some information about Escapees.Escapees not only offers a mail forwarding service but also offers a discount park system, as well as discounts on affiliated services. There are also RV sites at the Livingston location at Rainbow's End which has 130 full-hookup sites along with amenities such as a swimming pool, a large activity center and clubhouse.  So we drove through the park and it seemed rather nice but was very, very quiet.  After all we had been reading about how social everyone was in these RV parks we wondered whether it was all true or not.  I guess we will just have to go see more parks...