Lake Casa Blanca International State Park — Attraction in Laredo

This could be such a nice park and I wanted to like it; I really tried. Sites are well-cared-for and lavishly spacious, and all the equipment is in working order. The showers and bathrooms are clean and everything works; all pretty unusual for such an urban setting. And there are tons of birds for the watching!

The problem is about 10% of the people (I cannot call them campers) who use it and ruin it for the rest. Coming for a chilly six days in February, I was very fortunate (or so I thought) to get a prime waterfront site. All went well until Friday night when everything went downhill in a hurry. Bongo drums being played outdoors at 11 pm, loud music at all hours, children screaming in the streets until 11 pm or later, plastic trash being burned in the firepits, and worst of all, a perfect parade of total strangers using my quiet lakefront back yard as their personal fishing grounds.There are many fine places to catch fish that are not twenty feet behind someone's camper, yet no fewer than eight different sets of people fished there, not one asked me if it was all right, and each party left a liberal scattering of trash of all kinds... and that was just on Saturday! The crowning indignation was finding Sunday morning that a whole family had parked their car in my neighbor's driveway and pitched a tent for themselves and their two little boys on the lake edge not twenty feet from my little camper. Maybe they couldn't afford the $17 camping fee after making payments on their brand-new shiny black Cadillac Escalade. My heart bleeds.

I called the office and personnel were very apologetic but it took over 40 minutes for someone to come down and by that time the family had swiftly and expertly packed up and cleared out, leaving a pile of trash that took the nice ranger a good half hour to clean up.

On Monday morning I went down to the fishing pier to take one last look at the shorebirds and couldn't even walk all the way out for the (literally) piles of trash, fast food wrappers, worm dirt dumped out on the walk, snarls of fishing line, bare hooks lying about, half-eaten sandwich, I could go on and on.

I will never camp here again, at least until Park personnel begin to address these problems more vigorously. Apologies are fine but they don't address the problem, which is disregard for rules and lack of respect for property, be it the State's or mine, and a definite lack of vigilance and enforcement of those values....

This Texas State Park seems to be having an old fashioned identity crisis. It is first and foremost an urban park.

There is no darkness at night, if that is something that is important to you. I picked up a small pile of glass, along with the ubiquitous bread ties and beer caps from our site upon arrival. You could not allow a pet or child to play without doing a good clean up first.

There are some simple trails for walking. The park is quiet, with distant urban noise and the airport noise isn’t too bad. The sites are roomy with paved parking pads but there are few with any privacy. We were lucky to have a quiet corner.

One problem we had was when we returned from picking up groceries (we’re in a van) only to find someone happily setting up their huge rv in our site. We were lucky that they packed back up and moved when we explained it was our booked and paid for site for three nights. Apparently that may or may not happen. In the past, others have been relocated by the park warden and did not get their booked site.

Unfortunately, the office is kept locked and the solo park employee at the entrance “window” seems to be there sporadically?? Guests arriving with no bookings do “self check in” and this means that they access the park and then wander to choose their own camp site; even if it’s the one you booked days or weeks in advance. Sigh.

This leads to a stressful and potentially confrontational situation which guests should not have to deal with. A proper checkin system, with registration slips displayed on a post at the site, indicating it is taken, would eliminate the problem without the need to increase staff.

Overall, an enjoyable stay, despite a few hiccups. It’s urban location is great for exploring Laredo, but the park is tiered, understaffed and a little abused. It’s a shame when there’s clearly so much...

I was very disappointed. I drove 2 hours to Lake Casa Blanca State Park only to find that half of the park is closed off. The beginning of Roadrunner Trail (by headquarters) was open but was closed at the point where it meets with Mesquite Trail. Also it runs outside of the park boundaries. Mesquite trail is covered with broken glass throughout the trail but it did get me to the closed off section of the park. Whitetail Loop trail has tall grass that came up to my waist which is expected since the trail hasn't been used in some time but I wasnt going to risk being bit by something and the only section of Osprey Hill Loop that is open will be the scenic overlook portion. I really wish they had this information on the website so that i could have gone to a different park with accessible trails. The fish seemed to be very active. I stood on the shore thats behind Chloe's Consession (it's closed/going out of buisness) and within the first ten minutes there were four fish that jumped out of the water but if you plan on fishing your best bet is going to be by boat.... there are several places off the shore that you can fish from but they are also swimming areas. If you get there when the park opens you might be able to get a "private" area right off of State Senator Rd.. As you travel along this road you will see small "parking areas" on the left side, I counted seven, the sixth or fifth one looked like the nicest. Another area for fishing is off the shore around "Area 1", pass the boat ramp and the parking area and turn left on the next road, once you turn stay left and there's parking back there....you'll see a picnic table with a wooden fence, to the left is a trail that will take you...