March, 2015 – We have been members of Escapees RV Club since our first year of RVing full-time, and we have always wanted to visit the Escapees headquarters in Livingston, Texas, just north of Houston.
After visiting the stunning Caverns of Sonora in south-central Texas and getting a disc brake conversion done on our trailer in Forth Worth, we scooted east, stopping at the Casita Travel Trailer factory for a quickie tour, before spending five days at the Rainbow’s End RV Park on the huge Escapees campus.
Escapees RV Club headquarters in Livingston, Texas
Escapees RV Club is an amazing organization that is as varied as any club could possibly be. Drawing together RVers of all shapes and sizes and ages and interests, Escapees provides a huge range of services for all of us, from bootcamp training sessions for new RVers to specialized RV weighing stations to overnight RV accommodations of just about every variety (ownership, long and short term RV site rentals, cheap dry camping, park model rentals, etc.), assisted RV living for the elderly, mail forwarding services, an RV magazine, and on and on.
Rainbow’s End RV Park in Livingston, Texas
When we arrived at the Livingston, Texas, headquarters, the annual Escapees rally called Escapade was taking place in Tucson, Arizona. At that event, an exciting new facet of Escapees was introduced — Xscapers — a new branch of the club that is dedicated to younger RVers.
This is an exciting development in a very dynamic club that has always sought to find new and creative ways to support the RV lifestyle.
We arrive at the park.
Escapees was founded by Kay and Joe Peterson, a couple that was among the pioneers of the full-time RV lifestyle many decades ago. They were avid “boondockers,” and they overnighted in their RV without hookups to electricity or water on a regular basis.
With boondocking in its roots, most Escapees RV parks offer dry camping sites, usually for $5 per night (a little more for non-members). We were delighted to find that the Escapees Rainbow’s End RV Park in Livingston has three wonderful dry camping sites to choose from. After we walked to each site to check it out (none were in use — and we were told they rarely are!), we settled on a nice, big site called “Dry Camp A.” Unlike the smaller full hookup sites, this site was big and had a great feeling of privacy with lots of trees bounding two sides.
Dry Camp A — a super deal at $5/night!
Ironically, the heavens did nothing but pour pitchforks on us for our entire stay. After taking one sunny pic of our RV set up in its Rainbow’s End RV Park home, we saw nothing but driving rain for five more days! Mark started calling our site “Wet Camp A.”
If nothing else, at least all that rain gave us great opportunity to use soft rainwater to wash our buggy and clean off the road grime from the nasty ice storm we’d driven through!
The redbud trees were in bloom all around the Escapees campus
The Escapees compound in Livingston is enormous. Not only is there the expansive Rainbow’s End RV Park, but there are park model homes and stick-built homes on sites scattered all around the outskirts of the park, plus the CARE RV-based assisted living center and its affiliated RV sites at one end, and, of course, company headquarters and offices at the mammoth mail sorting facility.
Smack in the middle of all this is a tiny ice cream shop called the Rest Stop.
The Rest Stop Ice Cream Shop is in the middle of it all.
We had assumed that everyone on the Escapees property was an RVer, so it was a big surprise to find that quite a few people live there in houses without RVs. We got chatting with Theresa at the Rest Stop as she scooped our ice cream, and discovered that although she has dreams of casting off in an RV someday, for right now she enjoys living in a house in the community and hearing the travel tales from RVers who stop in for ice cream. She warmly recounted meeting an RVing family with lots of kids who came by.
Theresa gave us a warm welcome and yummy ice cream at the Rest Stop
Escapees Corporate Headquarters was just steps from our site, “Wet Camp A,” and we stopped in for a tour. Because almost the entire Escapees staff was at the Escapade rally in Tucson at the time, there was just a skeleton crew working, but the group taking the tour numbered 12 or so people anyway! These free tours are offered twice a week.
Escapees RV Club Headquarters
One of the most impressive aspects of the tour was seeing the Escapees mail sorting facility. Escapees forwards such a large volume of mail to its mail forwarding clients everyday that a US Mail semi-tractor trailer truck has to deliver it all. Escapees even has their own zip code, and they get more mail than the post office in Livingston! Everyday, the mail truck backs up to the sorting facility, triggering a daylong flurry of activity for some 20 people.
We watched an enormous machine presort the mail and then walked through a big room filled with filing cabinets where each client has a folder holding their mail. It was a very impressive operation!
A US Mail semi trailer rolls up with the day’s mail.
We learned that Escapees will soon be offering a service where clients can view a scanned image of each envelope they receive and then opt to have it opened or shredded. This could come in very handy for time-sensitive or important documents that you’re waiting to receive.
The Escapees community tour usually includes a trolly ride all around the campus, but the trolley driver was at Escapade, so we didn’t see that part of the tour. Next time!!
A cute trolley takes visitors on tours of the Escapees Rainbow’s End campus
But we did see the plaque honoring founders Joe and Kay Peterson when they were voted into the RV / MH Hall of Fame in 2001. We had seen this plaque at the RV / MH Museum in Elkhart, Indiana, where all the leaders and innovators in the RV industry are honored (if you are ever near Elkhart, a stop at that museum to see the vintage trailers on their Road Back in Time is a must! Our blog post is here).
Joe and Kay Peterson, founders of Escapees, were honored by the RV / MH Hall of Fame
Out in the lobby, our guide showed us two really fun little sticky note pads that used to be included in new members’ packets. These were mini invitations to “Friendship Hours” that you could fill out and stick on your RV neighbors’ doors to invite them to a potluck or other gathering. What a neat idea that was!!
Sticky notes to invite friends over…
…the modern day equivalent is RVillage.com
Nowadays RVers rely on social media to reach out to both nearby neighbors and RVing friends many miles away. But there was something very homey, cozy and friendly about those little sticky note pads, and I wasn’t the only one in the group who said, “Wow… Where can I get some?” Unfortunately, Escapees doesn’t make them any more.
Up on a wall in the main mail sorting room there is a wonderful display of dozens of issues of Escapees Magazine, and I was proud to see a few of our covers in the mix.
Escapees Magazine covers on display in the mail sorting facility
Escapees Magazine is written by members for members, and the editors are always looking for beautiful photos and technical “How To” types of articles to include. If you are an Escapees member, and you’ve learned something on the road that you want to share, write it up and send it in!
We saw a few of our cover photos in the mix
I wandered down to the CARE facility one afternoon, curious to learn more about this unique program. “CARE” stands for Continued Assistance for Retired Escapees. Participants in CARE live in their own RV in a site next to the big CARE clubhouse, and for $874 a month they get an RV site, help with dumping and propane tanks, three meals a day, housekeeping and laundry services, transportation to doctor’s appointments in town and weekly transportation to grocery shopping as well. What an amazing deal!
Escapees CARE Center
The clubhouse is the hub for CARE participants, and when I poked my head in one room, a group was enjoying watching a live concert being streamed in from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, on a huge flat screen TV. I was told that CARE will be offering adult daycare to elderly residents in the general Livingston area soon too.
Many of the RVs in the CARE RV sites have big, beautiful, permanent porches built out front. One of these with two huge wooden rocking chairs really got my attention. It just looked so inviting!
Many RVs in the CARE center have beautiful big porches built out front
As I was admiring it, an elderly woman came out on the porch in a bright red sweater and waved to me. Her name was Nedra, and we ended up chatting for quite some time. I asked her about CARE and she said, “Come on, I’ll give you a tour of the clubhouse!” and off we went. She proudly showed me the dining hall, which is a big, open, cheery room. She told me the food was wonderful! Visitors can enjoy an inexpensive meal there too if they let the dining room know by 10:30 a.m.
The Dining Room at the Escapees CARE clubhouse
RVers can workamp at CARE as well, and I talked with several RVers who really enjoy helping out this way, either in the dining hall or driving residents around town. Couples work together in teams, and in exchange for a minimum one month commitment to work 28-36 hours a week (per person), you get a free RV site at Rainbow’s End (with metered electricity) and you also get three free meals a day at CARE. If you work in the summertime, you receive a stipend to cover electricity for air conditioning.
Workampers can also work at the other end of the Escapees campus at the Rainbow’s End RV park. I was told that if you work at least 20 hours a week for a month or more, you receive a certificate good for a free night’s stay at any Escapees Rainbow RV Park for every 20 hours you work. We chatted with an RVing couple who really enjoyed defraying their travel costs this way, working at three or four different Escapees RV parks each year.
Kay and Joe Peterson’s immense creativity has built an incredible company that caters to the many unusual and unique needs of RVers
We really enjoyed our stay at Rainbow’s End, and after spending some time in Livingston, Texas, we came away even more impressed by the diversity of the Escapees RV Club than ever. Thank you, Kay and Joe, for creating a special virtual home — and a true community — for all RV travelers!!
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More info about Escapees:
- Join Escapees RV Club – And say you were referred by “Roads Less Traveled” (if the spirit moves you!)
- Escapees CARE Program (Continued Assistance for Retired Escapees)
- Xscapers – Escapees resources for young RVers
- Kay Peterson – The Inspiring Life Story of a Full-time RVing pioneer & the Co-founder of Escapees
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We just recently became TX residents using Escapees as our mail service so it was fascinating to learn those mail facts! What an operation! Even though Escapees is our address we did not visit Livingston, so thanks for taking me to our “home base”!!
It is an amazing operation… Lots of members are AARP members, and when we were there we watched identical AARP envelopes going into many of the mail slots. I’m not sure if they were bills or member notices of some kind, but it was hilarious to watch, and we were all laughing as these envelopes kept popping into the mail slots!!
Great write up and information. Although we don’t have our TT yet, we do plan to become Escapees members once we make the purchase. Our plan is to live as full time RVers. I believe their mail service and domicile service will be our choice as we head out. I chuckled as I read your reply to Metamorphosis Lisa, as we are also AARP members. We receive generic offerings for various types of insurance throughout the year. Perhaps you saw one such mailing.
Probably so!! Good luck with your TT purchase, Rene, have fun in your new lifestyle, and enjoy your Escapees membership!!
That’s an impressive array of high quality services!! It sounds like something my engineer uncle would design and bring to life with his development partners – so well thought out and sensitive and adaptable to past, present and future end user needs. About all that’s left is to invent and implement weather controls. Maybe a Millennial will figure that one out. I am blown away! Definitely joining Escapees after reading this.
Escapees is a terrific organization, Belinda, and there really is something for everyone. Who knows what the Millenials will create as they take more and more leading roles with Escapees in the future, but there is no doubt that all RVers benefit from the wide variety of work Escapees does.