Freddy F

As shown on their website, they are only open during the Balloon Festival
The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center offers exclusive dry dock RV camping sites (no hookups) during the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta®

This RV park is growing and you can see constant growth each day. Mind you, you are in the middle of a hot, dusty barren desert but when you come back from exploring the National or State Park all day, you are welcomed to a nice piece of "home". The park is well looked after, with great desert landscaping at each site, awesome fire pits, and sturdy metal picnic tables. We stayed in 2 different sites and both were easy to get to level.

The staff and owners are very friendly and it's obvious they are doing everything they can to make your trip a memorable stay. It's as if they want you to feel how they would want to feel if they were on vacation.

There are two community areas with games like Corn Hole, Horseshoes, Jenga, Tetherbole, BBQs, multiple fire pits, and benches. Next to the main community area is a nice fenced dog park for the dogs to get exercise and stretch their legs after being locked up all day in the RV while we were out exploring.

The park is on 40 acres so there's plenty of space to walk the dogs if they are not into playing with others in a park. We have one that loves parks and one that hates them so it was nice to be able to cater to both.

The only downside we found (but this goes for every park in Terlingua) is there is no shade. You can't escape the heat here, it's all around you, no way around it so prepare for that.

Cell service is really bad all around this area so don't rely on your Pet Monitors to notify you while you are away if you have them. We were concerned about the inside temps of the RV so we stopped by the NP Visitor Center occasionally to connect to their guest wifi to check our inside temps from our phones while exploring the park.

I heard Starlink worked great out here but I can tell you, there was no way I could work from either of my cell services AT&T was barely getting 1 Mbps download and Verizon barely showed a connection of 0.1 Mbps download.

PRO TIP: Gas is A LOT cheaper inside the National Park. The attendant told me since it is a NP, they are not allowed to mark up their prices and the one in Terlingua can mark up as much as they want. It was $1.23 cheaper inside the park for reference.

The park was fine for a stop over but didn’t feel too safe once the sun went down. I mean, it was fine, but I didn’t leave my bay doors unlocked at night. I would keep cruising by if I passed through Macon in the future.

We scouted this with our TOAD first and realized theres nice camping with some better areas than others but there was really only 3 areas that our big rig could get into without shaking the heck out of your rig. The road in is a pretty normal dirt road with some wash boards but pretty easy. The very beginning (right off the highway) is a bit rutted but pretty easy to get over by just going slow. Once up on the dirt road, it's easy sailing. You cannot camp within the first .6 miles but then it opens up to camping with space for many. There is a secluded Group site to the right as you come in but we found anywhere that did not have direct line of site of Moab, our internet (cell network) was unusable. As long as you have a line of sight of Moab (between the ridges) then our internet was strong enough to work and watch tv. Others with Starlink, it's open game. We stayed in the large open area to the left which worked great for us. It was busy but that was to be expected in the spring. This spot is about 15min to town and 20 minutes to Arches. Verizon 15 GB down, 5 GB up - AT&T 30 GB down, 15 GB up

We stayed for 7 days in our 35ft Class A. It’s not far off the road but far enough to get away from noise and be in Nature. We had 2 different groups of Bighorn Sheep hanging around camp 3 different days. Saw them smashing horns and all. It was pretty amazing to witness. BLM office has established camp spots, shaping most vegetated areas to help control the impact on the land. Most spots are on slight inclines so bring blocks. Great for vans and small trailers but doable up to 35’ The entrance is deeply rutted and gets muddy fast but it drys quickly. Free potable water and $10 cc dump station 8 miles away at Poncho Springs Welcome Center.

The park is nice and has 2 pools (a 4 lane lap pool and a bean shaped pool with a deeper end), 2 hot tubs, big community center, 2 pickleball courts, shuffleboard, bocce ball and multiple ponds located throughout the park. They have their own Propane fill station as well.

The concrete pad sites are nice and are all full sun but if you are looking for shade, you should opt for a non-concrete pad.

Site 197 is FULL shade all-day long which would be nice in the summer but was not all that great in the winter. It would've been nice to get some sun to warm up the site and the camper but it worked.

All in all, this is a nice park that gets filled up in the winter and everyone is there for the entire winter. The rate is really great because they did not charge for electricity which was a real nice perk. There are multiple laundry rooms scattered throughout which were reasonable $1.50 per load. The 50-amp power was steady and we never had any variance of power the entire time were there.

This is a real hidden gem, it's a bit of a hike to the grocery store and nothing around but a great place to duck into for a few nights if you want to explore Kennedy Space Center or even just wander around the area and need a home base for a bit. We thought it was a great spot to winter.

There are a lot of spaces and many that are big and open. This is definitely Big Rig friendly and easy to access. Good road in but definitely worth scouting before bringing a big rig in. Some areas further back have low tree branches on approach and the road gets rougher as you go back. The best part is each camp spot has a lot of distance between each other so generators are not a bother. We turned left when you hit the Day Use junction (porta potties) and camped at the second spot on the left - very level and big. My AT&T internet (in Pepwave router) was running about 37MB down and 15MB up. Verizon jetpack was much slower and practically unusable.

There is a $10 dump (self-pay with debit/cc) and free fresh water at the visitor center in Poncho Springs about 20 minutes to the south at the corner of 285 & 50.

Stayed at Iron Horse for a month (30-days) to get some needed repairs done on our RV and dodge the high temperatures NV was being dealt in September. The park is nicely maintained and the pull-ins are super easy to access. Each spot is a dirt pad and a concrete slab with a picnic table that you can easily line your steps with. Some have grass and there's gravel around the site. #3 has an area of grass on the backside that was great for our dog to use but it backs up against the entrance road so can get a little busy in the mornings (people leaving) and around lunchtime when new arrivals pull in. The campground internet was not working when we were here but we have a few different hotspots so we didn't care so much. Verizon was by far the strongest and most reliable but our AT&T worked when we needed it but was hit and miss at times and we had to put our MIMO antenna facing west to get any valuable connection.

Oh yeah, there is a train yard very close by so there is train noise throughout the night but when you sleep as heavy as we do, you hardly notice. If you are a light sleeper, I'd recommend putting earplugs in because they will throw a horn a few times a night.

There's a tiny market on-site but we never used it because there is a grocery store about a 2-minute drive or a 5-minute bike ride away. You can walk to the Red Lion Casino if you wish but with COVID going on, you have to wear your mask the entire time you are inside. Elko is a small town so there is not a ton of things to do but if you like to explore the outdoors, Lamoille Canyon is about 30-minutes away and has some pretty awesome hiking and makes for a very pretty drive up the canyon. We also made some day trips up to Idaho as well.

RV Repairs:
Cummins Sales & Service:
As I said, we stopped here to get some repair work done and the Cummins shop is awesome to work with (Terry service manager really looks after you). They have 4 RV parking spaces with electric boxes if you just need to pull in for the night or two and you wouldn't need to book a stay at a campground if you wanted to avoid it (no water). We needed to pull our coach into Cummins 3 times while here and since we live full-time in our RV, they always made sure they would have it back to us by 5 the same evening and get us back in when they received parts.

Gateway RV:
Taking advantage of our 30-day stay, we also had Gateway RV do a number of things for us and they were equally as cool to work with. We were having an electrical problem with one of our slides that had been looked at by 2 other shops with no fix. Jeremy at Gateway figured out the problem pretty quickly and fixed it in half a day. We also called them out for mobile service which was just $20 for the callout fee. They get pretty busy so it's best to call ahead or have patience with their schedule. When they do get to you, they do great work.

All in all, Elko is a super friendly town

This campground is convenient for accessing the Tampa RV SuperShow in Jan and has lots of spaces but many are filled with long-term RV'ers so plan ahead. They are close together but not so tight that you need to worry about getting your RV in and out of your space.

My Verizon ran at 67mbs download 6.5 upload on 1/10/21 around 3:30pm

The park is in a pretty shady part of town and spaces are pretty close together BUT is in a really great location for exploring south Florida. Key Largo is 25 minutes away, Key West 2.5 hours, Everglades National Park is 17 minutes away and you can be in Miami Beach in 50 minutes.

Trust me when I say it's not a very pretty park and the surrounding area is pretty rough around the edges but if you are looking for a good base camp to explore South Florida, it's perfect for the price.