Good News
20 Years of Making Visitors Feel at Home
Home is where the heart is, and for the Whorton family, home is also where you park it. On October 13, the family-owned and operated Colorado Landing RV Park owners Charlo and Tracie Whorton celebrated 20 years of ownership, hardship, and friendships.
“We bought it with the intent of making it an RV park,” Charlo said. “My family always camped in tents or RVs and I came from three generations of Eagle Scouts. We were always either camping with the family in an RV or with the Boy Scouts in a tent.”
After retiring from the Navy after 20 years, Charlo and his father decided to buy the park. “We looked at over 200 parks across the U.S. before choosing Colorado Landing, which was originally a mobile home park with 12 pullthrough sites,” Charlo said. Shortly after buying the park, he married his high school sweetheart, Tracie.
Over time, mobile homes moved out, and unfortunately, Hurricane Harvey destroyed the remaining ones. “In fact, many of those remaining residents purchased RVs and continue to live in the RV park to this day,” Tracie said, who still suffers from PTSD due to the effects of Hurricane Harvey and especially after seeing the recent hurricanes in North Carolina.
“We lost the manager’s mobile home which was my parent’s home and my brother’s, too. Fortunately, we live in Schulenburg, so they could all come to our home. We worked out of an RV because our office was gone. Every site was lined up with railroad ties. Well, every one of those railroad ties got taken away and ended up wedged in the trees.”
Carlo added, “Our guests are completely different kinds of people. Our regular guests came in after the hurricane and offered to help us clean up. They even went out to buy wheelbarrows and wagons to assist in the cleanup. When we told them that just helping was enough, they insisted on paying for their site and kept returning until everything was cleaned up. It was truly amazing.”
And after 20 years many locals may view the almost 30 acres of the park as just a tourist spot, but during my short time there, it felt like a home away from home.
“We see a variety of guests at our RV park, including those staying for a night, a weekend, snowbirds, and visitors who might spend a week or even a month with us. We have welcomed people from various countries, as well as locals seeking a temporary getaway,” Charlo said. “One thing that sets us apart from other RV parks is that we always answer the phone, no matter the day or time, because we want to engage with everyone who comes to our park. We do not offer online reservations.”
Another major thing that sets them apart is their highly impressive Good Sam rating since 2016, “Good Sam sets the standard for RV parks across the country, and we are proud to be recognized as one of the top-rated parks—ranked in the top 400 out of half a million, placing us in the top 1%,” Charlo said. Tracie added, “Many visitors tell us that our reviews are what bring them back here when they are looking for a place to stay, so our Good Sam rating is very important to us.”
The park currently offers 94 camping sites, including spacious pull-through and back-in options that come equipped with 50/30 amp electrical service, water, sewer, cable, and Wi-Fi. Additionally, the park features a swimming pool, a playground, a laundry facility, and a community center. Visitors can also enjoy scenic walking trails along the river. One helpful detail that many locals might not be aware of is that propane is available on-site.
And it is not only the people who enjoy their RV park, “Many people have strictly come just to stop at our dog park. They tell us their dogs must stop here to enjoy the three-acre dog park we built, which features fun equipment for them to run and play on,” Tracie said. After speaking to the Whortons they reminded me to fill my life with adventures, not things. Have stories to share, not stuff to show and that is something worth celebrating.