The drive down from Lafayette (after a stop at our new favorite Starbucks and Whole Foods Market) was really nice. Once we were off the main highway headed for Abbeville, we were on really what I'd say were almost back roads.
The road became more and more narrow and more lush. The leaves are really coming out on the trees down here and there are lots more blossoming trees and bushes.
When we arrived the park was really quite empty. We counted between 18-20 filled sites out of 98! There are lots of birds, but we are hearing more than seeing them as there is a lot of vegetation around the sites. By early afternoon on Friday the park was nearly full. it was filled with children doing all sorts of things from driving remote-controlled vehicles right down the middle of the campground road to riding motorized Razor skooters unsupervised and all kinds of bicycle riders. Imagine an oblivious five year old on a scooter playing chicken with a seven year old on a bicycle and you know that it ended with a collision.
The noise level in the campground just increased and increased. Our next door neighbors had a barking dog about which they did little to silence. Along with all the presence of so many more people came a whole lot of golf carts being driving around by people too lazy to just get out and walk. No apologies here, but when children are being toted around in carts flying Confederate and US flags Marty gets bent out of shape.
We did get out for both bike rides and walks. There are some nice nature walks here in the park with only one problem, WATER! After all the rains, there were more and deeper puddles than we wanted to walk through.
(nice height on that long jump, huh)
David's solution for getting over the water was what you see, Marty's was to walk through it in her sandels.
There are several ponds or lagoons here in the park where folks fish. One can also launch a canoe from the pond nearest us and then follow a connecting stream to another pond or to the Vermillion River (which has been flooding up in Lafayette). Also living in the ponds are alligators (proof above) and snakes (which we didn't see). Obviously, there is no swimming in the ponds or lagoons.
The park does have a lovely picnic area with pavallions like the one above. The pond behind is where Marty took photos of the alligators.
On the nature trail and just walking around the park we saw hundreds of dragon flies. Most of them were the beautiful lime green you see in the photo above.
Come Sunday most everyone has left again. The park is down to only 21 filled sites including the campground hosts. It is once again quiet. We have learned that we like the campgrounds during the week when there are many fewer folks around than we do on weekends when they're crowded. This is a nice campground with large sites but there is not quite enough space between them, if there were more space we'd have been much happier campers when the campground was filled. We don't think that this is a function of our age, but more a function of our personalities.
Monday we head to the New Orleans area and are beginning to plan out our time there. After that we head north with several nights probably in Walmart parking lots before we get to Grand Haven, MIchigan to visit friends. Then it's on back to VA to see family and then back to Maine on the 4th.
News flash- two armadillos walked through our campsite Sunday night!
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