Cajun Palms RV Resort in the Winter

Just a quick look around the RV Resort where the Texas Ramblin' Roses/Heart of Dixie RVW chapters held their joint rally. Cajun Palms RV Resort in Henderson LA is a very nice park but it is not cheap. Winter prices are much reduced since the water park type pool area is not open. They have way over 300 RV spaces with a whole bunch more in the process of being added. And that doesn't include the many cabins that are also available. The hot tub is pretty wonderful but you have to ask them to turn it on so it isn't much of a benefit since it takes so long to heat up. By the time it's ready, you are off doing something else. We have found this to be true at a lot of parks in the winter.

In the summer you would find these pools full of people.

And customers lined up at the pool bar.

There are even booths in the water.

Sites are pretty well spaced out although this view makes them look closer. Each site has a picnic table but the campfire belongs to one of the ostesses.

Each site has more than enough room for an RV and a vehicle. They are wide and concrete. The RV area is pretty dark at night which is fine with me.

We also had a nice meeting room although no kitchen. It all worked out pretty well for the rally.

Lost in Louisiana

Mary Jane and I caravanned out of San Antonio on Tuesday morning on our way to a rally jointly sponsored by the Texas Ramblin' Roses and the Heart of Dixie chapters of RVing Women. We sped through Houston with no problems. We stopped for the night in Beaumont at Gulf Shores RV Park. It's an easy in/out Passport America park with pull-through sites and breakfast. It was an easy few hours to arrive in Henderson and the Cajun Palms RV Resort.

The rally doesn't officially start until Friday but most of us come early. By Wednesday night, there were about 15 women there. We sat around a campfire and visited for a while in the evening getting to know women from the Heart of Dixie.

This morning 19 of us headed to Champagne's Swamp Tours.

We filled up a whole boat with one empty seat filled by a woman who was learning about the tour prior to becoming a tour guide. She took lots of notes

The boat had swivel seats which made it easy to see everything.

The swamp is not what most people expect. It is not smelly or stagnant. The guide told us that most people believe there are some springs which keep things fresh. First wildlife we came upon was a "bale of turtles".

The green on the water is actually thousands of very tiny plants.

And some areas are really clear and you can see through the water.

You have to look really hard in the middle of the picture to see "Stella". She frequents this area and has a nest where she had her babies some time ago.

There were a couple of babies there too.

Back on more open water again. We saw lots of birds like anhingas, snowy egrets, and great blue herons.

Moss covers most of the trees.

We spotted another larger gator here. The guide said a good way to determine their length is to look at the distance between their eyes to the end of their snout. Each inch is equal to a foot in length.

The gators we saw never moved a muscle.

There are actually two gators here.

We saw a number of these duck blinds out on the lake part. Those little specks to the left of the blind are actually decoys. There were an amazing number of decoys. The hunters bring their boats into the blind.

See the big nest on the left tree top? There are a number of nests on the lake which are used year after year.

Here we are headed back to the landing after two hours on the lake and in the swamp. It was really a great tour.

 After the swamp tour, we all went to Poche's Market for lunch. It was very good. Later in the afternoon we all gathered at one of the women's rigs. A lot more of the women arrived today. This is part of the group that got together this afternoon.

Texas to Florida - Biloxi MS Stopover

We had plans to stop at the Cajun Palms RV Resort in Henderson LA and to have a chance to visit a Pink FlaminGoes RV friend that lives nearby in Butte LaRose.  The park is a bit more expensive than I like to pay but they have a waterpark area and huge pools so we planned to arrive about noon and get our monies worth.  However, the closer we got, the darker the sky got and it was easy to tell that the weather was turning bad.  Not much point in stopping at a water park and my friend was at work all day so we headed on down the road.

Yup, we called it right.  Pretty soon it was pouring.  It was one of those rains that was so hard you really want to pull over but you don't dare because people couldn't see you.  It was like that for about an hour so we were all traveling rather slowly down the road.

During our lunch stop, we were checking out possible overnight stops.  We found one that looked good in Biloxi, Ms. and another further down the road in Alabama.  Since we knew there was a pool, we decided to stop early again.  I think Steve and the kids all liked the park last night so well, they were afraid this one wouldn't be as good.  Martin Lake Resort was every bit as good if not even better.  They only had one pull-through which we got but it wouldn't have been a hardship if we had gotten one of the regular sites because they were all paved, extra wide and long enough to leave the vehicle hooked up.  $20 Passport America rate.

The playground was like something out of Disney.  It was three stories high and lights came on when it  was dusk and started going out about 9:30PM.

There was a beach area on a small lake.  Up above the beach were picnic tables and grills.  Further along the lake were places to fish.

In addition to the sandy beach and lake bottom, there were free paddle boats and life jackets.  You can see some of the ducks and geese that were around the lake area.

They also had real cute little cabins for rent across from the playground.

The pool was large and very clean.  I managed to catch a picture of it while people were out eating supper.  The beach closed at dark but the pool was open until 10:00PM when quiet time started and it was nice and quiet all night.  I was also surprised that there were very few mosquitoes and there has been a lot of rain in the area.

The jacuzzi was wonderful, nice and warm and very relaxing.

Another great stop--I wonder what tomorrow will bring?