All About Relaxing RV Park - Theodore, Alabama (April 2023)

We were exposed to COVID and decided to leave the Cajun Caravan one day earlier than planned. We called All About Relaxing RV Park to see if we could arrive a day earlier than our reservations. The park was full, but we could stay in their overflow area with 50 amp power and water connections. We quickly agreed and hitched up for an early morning departure. 

We left Louisiana before sunrise. Our tire monitor system hadn’t registered with all of Rosie’s tires when we pulled out of the campground. (Rosie is what we call our Airstream trailer.) When it did, the alarm told us we had low pressure in one tire. It was dark, but we pulled into what we thought was an old gas station and got out the air pump. That was when we noticed a growing number of school aged children gathering next to Rosie. Yes, we were at a school bus stop and the number of students indicated that the bus was on the way. We were thankful that we were able to pump up the tire and pulled away before the bus arrived. 

The remainder of our trip was uneventful and we arrived at the campground early in the afternoon. 

We stayed at several campgrounds during the WBCCI Cajun Caravan that included the word “resort” in their names and I wondered what amenities they had that came up to to the level of a resort. This campground did not have “resort” in its name and we both recognized that it clearly qualified as a resort. It was more than the great swimming pool, which was open. It was more than the meeting areas around the park. It was more than the restrooms and showers, which may qualify as the nicest we have seen in any campground before. It was more than the manicured lawns and shrubs there. It was more than the friendly and helpful staff in the campground. The park's name didn’t include the word “resort,” but it clearly deserved that name.

Rosie in the overflow site

A nice meeting area in this campground

One of several spots in this campground to "relax"

Since we were exposed to COVID, we kept our distance from other people. That was perfect because the overflow site was away from the main camping loop. We walked around the park while avoiding crossing paths with other people. Isolation  was also hard on us since our son, his wife and our grandson were only a few miles away and we could not risk potentially exposing them to COVID. 

Walking Suzy in around the main camping loop

We pulled out early the next morning. We needed gas so we pulled off the Interstate Highway at a truck stop. Imagine my surprise when we merged back on the Interstate and saw our son’s car beside us in the other lane. He was headed to work and was as surprised as us to be sharing the road with his parents and Rosie for a few miles. 

Rosie in our son's mirror

Becky waving to our son as he exited the Interstate

All About Relaxing’s overflow spot didn’t have a sewer connection so we needed to stop at a rest stop with a dump station to drain and rinse our waste water tanks. Fortunately, most Alabama rest stops have dump stations. 

Dump station at an Alabama Rest Stop

Our return to the Interstate was memorable, but not as enjoyable as being on the road next to our son. I never returned to our cruising speed because traffic was at a standstill. We found out that a semi truck carrying hazardous materials turned over ahead of us about four hours earlier. It took more than two hours to travel a mere 10 miles. Then the bottleneck cleared and we were again headed home at our normal towing speed. 

By the way, we talked with our daughter-in-law as we headed home. She is a clinical pharmacist at a major hospital and she gave us the timeline of how long we should isolate ourselves if we continued showing no symptoms of COVID. We followed her instructions and ended up not getting COVID. Whew!

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• We found one loop in this campground
• Our site was a back in
• Most sites had some shade
• Most sites had some space on both sides
• Our site was paved with gravel and we needed to use leveling tools to correct a side-to-side lean in Rosie 
• Our site had a 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection
• As the overflow site, it did not have a sewer connection 
• There was a bathhouse in the campground 
• The park did not provide WiFi service 
• AT&T provided 2 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Bounce, Charge, Comet, Court-TV, Grit, ION, LAFF, ME-TV and Stadium
• There were restaurants and shopping nearby
• This was a pet friendly park 

Bayou Wilderness RV Resort - Carencro, Louisiana (March 2023)

Nearly everyone on a WBCCI Caravan has an opportunity to help the group through an assigned task and our duty was to serve as parkers at this campground. That meant we left our last campground two hours earlier than the other members and traveled to this park with the caravan leaders. We quickly unhitched and set up Rosie, our Airstream trailer, because we knew there were about 20 more Airstream trailers headed to this park. 

Following the leaders to Bayou Wilderness RV Resort

Sign at the entrance to the campground

Our jobs were simple. I stood at the entrance to the campground with a red flag and waved in approaching trucks pulling Airstream trailers. I used our radios to relay the number of the arrivals to Becky, who gave them their site numbers and other park information. 

It was interesting to me that you could turn into this campground from three directions. We had fellow caravaners who arrived from all three directions while following the same directions. How does that happen? Of course the answer is that Apple Maps, Google, Garmin and the many other GPS systems in use all came up with their own shortcuts to the park. 

There were more than 100 sites in this campground. The roads inside this park were paved with gravel. 

Walking Suzy in the campground

Some of our activities from this campground included a swamp tour and a visit to an alligator skin studio where they made purses, wallets and boots. We also visited a large Catholic Church that had an amazing tree on the side of the building. 

Dinner for the gator?

Becky putting that gator in his place

Part of our group leaving for the swamp tour

The local Catholic church

A huge tree on the side of the church

One of the exciting things while in the campground happened in the middle of the night. We had a severe thunderstorm and ended up turning on the air conditioner's fan to help drown out the sound of heavy rain and constant thunder. Our Yorkie dog wanted to be under the covers and right next to us. 

It took more than a day for the standing water to drain off some sites. We were fortunate in that Rosie was dry and the puddles on our site were away from Rosie. 

We learned that several people on our caravan tested positive for COVID. We would learn about another testing positive the next day. We decided to be cautious and isolate ourselves from the group. We ended up leaving this campground and our caravan one day early. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There were multiple loops in the campground
• Our site was a pull-through 
• Most sites could be classified as "full sun" as trees were few and far apart
• Most sites had some space on both sides
• Our site was paved with gravel and we needed to use leveling tools to correct a side-to-side lean in Rosie, our Airstream trailer. 
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service. The site next to us had only 50 amp service 
• Our site had a water connection
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• There were several small trash dumpsters scattered around the campground. It was easy to walk to one with your trash
• The bathhouse was under renovation while we were in the campground and was unusable
• The park provided WiFi service 
• AT&T provided 2 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Antenna-TV, Bounce, Buzzr, Grit, H&I, ION, LAFF, ME-TV, MY-TV and Stadium
• There were restaurants and shopping nearby
• This was a pet friendly park 

Abbeville RV Park - Abbeville, Louisiana (March 2023)

For the third time on this trip, our assigned site in a campground wasn’t meant for Rosie, our Airstream trailer. As we were trying to park Rosie, several members of our WBCCI Cajun Caravan came over to help and the consensus was that Rosie was too big to fit that site. That was confirmed by the camp host. 

Sign at the entrance to the campground

Rosie was too big?  How can a 26 foot trailer be too big? Easy! You cannot fit a 26 foot trailer in a site that a 20 footer would struggle to fit into. 

Rosie was quickly reassigned to an appropriate site. What we lost at our new site was 50 amp power. More about that later. 

Rosie in this campground

We camped in this park seven years ago in our first Airstream trailer, a 30 amp unit. People with 30 amp trailers quickly learn how to track their power usage. For example, we could not run the air conditioner and the microwave at the same time without blowing a fuse. 

Things are different with our current 50 amp Airstream trailer. Fifty ampers normally don’t have to keep track of how many electrical devices are on. Our new site with only 30 amps meant we had to get back into the mindset of keeping track of our amperage usage. 

The first thing turned off was the electric element in the hot water heater. If hot water was needed, we had to use the propane gas side of that heater. 

We also had to make sure the air conditioner was off before using the microwave oven. We were amazed at how much planning we needed to keep our electrical usage below 30 amps and thankful that most RV parks we visit have 50 amp utilities. 

Some of the things we did in Abbeville were crawfish harvesting, eating a crawfish boil and listening to live Cajun music on the city square. 

On the Crawfish boat

The crawfish boil came with instructions on how to eat them

Becky makes friends with a baby alligator 

Back to our 30 amp power dilemma. I was working outside Rosie the day before we left this campground and noticed a small box next to the utilities pole. This is typically a connection for cable TV or a telephone jack in older parks and this qualified as a campground that has been around a while. I was surprised to see a 50 amp power connector when I looked inside that box. I plugged in our surge protector and it found no problems with that power connector. A few minutes later, I switched Rosie over to the 50 amp feed and we stopped keeping track of our amperage usage. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There were multiple loops in the campground
• Our site was a back in
• Our site had shade
• Our site had some space on both sides. A few sites in this campground were very close to each other 
• Our site was paved with dirt and gravel. We needed to use leveling tools to correct a side-to-side lean in Rosie
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• The trash dumpster was at the back of the campground. It was easy to walk there with your trash
• There wasn’t a bathhouse in the campground 
• The park provided minimal WiFi service 
• AT&T provided 2 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were-Bounce, Buzzr, Court-TV, Cozy, Grit, H&I and ME-TV
• There were restaurants and shopping nearby
• This was a pet friendly park 

Outside city hall and yes, it includes a mural of an accordion 

Suzy meets a caterpillar 

Inside a local church

Enjoying lunch

Live music on the town square

Dancing to the live music on the square

Isle of Iberia RV Resort - New Iberia, Louisiana (March 2023)

Neither Apple nor Google Maps had any idea where this campground was located. Needless to say, Ford’s navigation system was also clueless. All of our GPS systems wanted to take us to the center of town. We had to set our GPS systems to the fairgrounds to find this campground. 

The frustrating thing wasn’t the GPS systems confusion about the park’s location, it was the rain and cold as we were setting up. It was miserable as we unhitched Rosie, our Airstream trailer. 

Sign at entrance of this campground

This was a large campground with more than 180 sites. All of the sites were angled the same way and equally spaced. This gave the appearance of a large parking lot. 

Rosie in the campground among friends

We had a first at this park. The power connections were positioned in a way on our site that prevented using our surge protector. I was very uncomfortable directly plugging Rosie into their power connection without a protector. 

Fortunately, the rain stopped after the first day. Temperatures remained cold and dipped below freezing one night. 

There was a horse exhibition over the weekend at the fairgrounds. It was interesting to catch a few glimpses of that competition and hear the sounds of the horses. 

Some of the places we visited while at this campground were the Rip van Winkle gardens, the Tabasco factory and Martin Cajun Accordions. The gardens and accordion factories were interesting. The Tabasco factory tour did not live up to its hype. 

Rip Van Winkles Gardens on Johnson Island

A Catholic Church near our campground

Enjoying a Cajun music performance at the Martin Accordion Factory  

Avery Island Jungle Experience

Bamboo near the Tabasco factory

We had another first while camping in this park. I used our Garmin GPS to find a gas station near the park selling gas at a cheaper price than the overpriced station across from this campground. Gas Buddy found a strong contender less than four miles away. I loaded the station in the GPS as our destination and started following its directions. I was surprised when it turned me onto a street with about 30 cars in front of me and everyone was stopped. I was in an elementary school car pickup lane inside a school zone and there was no passing or getting out of that lane. The lane moved quicker than I feared and soon I was at the point where a teacher came up to my truck and asked what child I was there to pick up. I told her my GPS made a bad decision routing me to a gas station and I was gullible enough to follow it. She told me to stop at child loading area two and explain my story to the teacher there. I did and was told to follow the car in loading area one away from the school. It seemed as though the shortcut Garmin came up with added about 30 minutes to that trip. 

The big question unanswered remains. Is this a resort as the name boldly stated? There are no published standards for the title "resort" campgrounds. This campground had a lazy river and a swimming pool. Of course, these were not open because of the weather. I’m sure the place had many exciting amenities during fair season, but it was a stretch for me to call this place a resort during the campground's off season. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There were multiple loops in the campground
• Our site was a pull-thru
• Our site had no shade
• Our site could be described as a parking lot as the sites were close together 
• Our site was paved with concrete and was level 
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service
• There was an obstruction near the power connection that prevented us from using our surge protector 
• Our site had a water connection
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• The rules sheet said that trash left in bags along the road would be picked up by 9 a.m.  That didn’t happen over the weekend 
• There was a bathhouse in the campground. It wasn’t heated and was very cold
• The park provided very slow WiFi service. It would work for a few minutes then report that it no longer was connected to the Internet. It goes without saying that it was frustrating and unusable 
• AT&T provided 3 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to watch ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Antenna-TV, Circle, Court-TV, ION, LAFF, ME-TV and MY-TV
• There were restaurants and shopping nearby
• This was a pet friendly park 

Enjoying lunch in a restaurant with Cajun food and live music

Cajun Heritage RV Park - Breaux Bridge, Louisiana (March 2023)

Our journey to this campground included an unplanned stop. We noticed a problem with Rosie, our Airstream trailer, and Foley RV/Airstream of Mississippi’s service department said they could fix it. We arrived at Foley RV early on a Monday and unhitched knowing that we were a “work in.”

We were very grateful when John, their service manager, told us around noon that the repairs were done and we could continue on to our first campground on the WBCCI Cajun Caravan. 

Foley RV/Airstream of Mississippi

The office was closed when we arrived at the Cajun Heritage RV Park. One of the camp hosts came to our rescue and guided us to our assigned site. That was our first experience taking with someone with a strong Cajun accent. I'm not sure what we talked about as I rode to our site in his golf cart, but it was enjoyable.

There was a problem with our site. It had a tree too close to the site’s entrance. The camp host moved us to another site and we were thankful for that. 

Sign at this campground

It was interesting when the camp store opened. Sure, it had the normal snack and camping supplies found in camp stores. It also had an amazing selection of liquors. 

Rosie in the campground

It was interesting to watch the other Airstream trailers arrive for the caravan.  It didn't take long for the park to fill with beautiful aluminum trailers.

This campground was interesting in that there was a huge area of grass in the middle of the campground. That made us feel as if we were camping in a large park. 

All the roads in this park were dusty gravel. We were amazed at how quickly our truck, Rosie and our dog were covered with dust. 

Our group traveled to Baton Rouge from this campground. Our youngest son earned a degree from LSU in Baton Rouge, so we were warned by him about the traffic there. It appeared that traffic problems were worse this time. 

Inside the "old" Governor's Mansion

At the "old" State Capital

Inside the "old" State Capital

Both Apple and Google Maps warned us of a 45 minute delay on our route to Baton Rouge then suggested an alternative route. We found ourselves on dirt roads and using a one-lane bridge to get to our destination. We were glad we were not pulling Rosie on that trip!

One of our “must do’s” in Baton Rouge was to visit LSU. There is a plaque near the Manship School of Mass Communication honoring our son. We were proud parents and glad we had an opportunity to see his plaque. 

Proud parents at LSU

We also saw Mike the Tiger, LSU’s mascot. Mike was enjoying a nap while we were there. 

Suzy meets LSU's statue of Mike the Tiger

There was a big change in weather our last day in this park. It turned cold and rainy. We were glad we hitched up the night before we had to leave for our next adventure. 

It rained while in this campground

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There were multiple loops in the campground
• Our site was a back in
• Our site had a little shade
• Most sites had some space on both sides
• Our site was paved with gravel and dirt and we needed to use leveling tools to correct a side-to-side lean in Rosie
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection
• Our site had a sewer connection 
• Our sewer connection was about a foot off the ground. That meant gravity would never be able empty Rosie’s tanks
• The trash dumpster was in the middle of the campground. It was easy to walk there with your trash
• There was a bathhouse in the campground. It was hopelessly outdated and frequently out of necessary supplies 
• The park advertised that it provided WiFi service. According to the office, it has been broken since the last storm 
• Speaking about the office and the camp store, this was the first campground store that could double as a liquor store
• AT&T provided 2 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were able to watch ABC, Fox, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Antenna-TV, Circle, Court-TV, CW, H&I,  LAFF, ME-TV and My-TV
• There were restaurants and shopping nearby
• This was a pet friendly park 

Selfie at the campground