Although we typically only look at KOA parks for overnight stays, we stayed at the Lafayette KOA for one night on the way to New Orleans and for nine nights on our return trip so we could plan our next few months of travels. We also needed to get caught up on some other things we had been putting off like maintenance items in our RV which was a challenge with all the rain. KOA parks tend to have a lot of family friendly activities that we don’t usually take advantage of and you pay for those amenities so they tend to be expensive. On the other hand, KOAs are often easy to access from major highways. This makes them quite convenient for short stays.

The Lafayette KOA (actually in Scott, LA rather than Lafayette) was a nice park built around a pond. It had many amenities for families as well as a new area in the back of the park which was much nicer than some of the other areas within the park. We stayed both times in the newer area.  

Nearby were quite a few stores and restaurants many with great Cajun selections. We liked Fezzo’s but our favorite place for seafood was Don’s in nearby Lafayette. We also visited Crawfish Town USA on Thanksgiving day for their Thanksgiving buffet. It was mostly traditional holiday fare including turkey and dressing but they also had seafood items like fried catfish and seafood pasta. Almost everything had a bit of Cajun spices that made it unique for the area. Everything was very good!

While in the area we had a couple of clear days and took two side trips which are described in detail in other posts. The first was a Swamp Tour on Lake Martin east of Lafayette. We also went south down to New Iberia and Avery Island to take a tour of the Tabasco Hot Sauce factory.

Rating: 1/2
Location:  Scott, Louisiana
Site Quality:  Asphalt roads with concrete pads. There were both pull thru and back in spots.   
Type:  Commercial
Access:  Just off Interstate 10 with easy access to the park. The exception is that there is a roundabout you have to go through just outside the park that can be a bit challenging with a larger rig.
Staff:  All staff we met were friendly and helpful.
Amenities:  Full hookups, swimming pool(2), miniature golf, playground, laundry, bath house and restrooms. On site LP gas. Pond within the park allows for license free fishing.
Cellular/WiFi:  AT&T and Verizon 3 bars without amplification. Data rates were pretty good on both. 
What we liked: Concrete pads and paved roads as we had a lot of rain during our stay. Large park for a long walks.
What we didn’t like: Some road noise from Interstate 10 and occasional distant train noise. Only the premium sites have fire rings – these were $10-$15 more per night.

We learned a lot about peppers, aging and storing.  We could smell the peppers and the aged whiskey barrels in the storage area.  Peppers are mashed and mixed with salt then aged in used Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey white oak barrels for 3 years.  After that the mash is strained to remove seeds and skins then the remainder is blended with vinegar and periodically stirred for a month in huge vats.  Feel the burn in the air! 

We were lucky to be touring on a day the production line was busy bottling several varieties of Tabasco.  The end of the tour was the gift shop with a Tabasco tasting area.  Feel the burn!  We left with a new appreciation for Tabasco, along with several bottles and a t-shirt.  Enjoy our pictures below.

Our tour guide was Bryan Champagne. He and his wife have been running the tours for 20 years. When we were chatting before the tour he told me he also manages 600 crawfish cages which he baits, catches and sells to local restaurants, when the price is right! He has guided many documentary and international television crews, etc. thru these swamps and been written up in several travel magazines. Also about the big gator that lives around the dock and how dogs are his food of choice. He says in his lazy cajun accent, “I can jump in do boat repairs no problem but if a dog jumps in he grabs him right away don’t ya know.”  Glad we didn’t see that!

Bryan talked about bayous (barely moving lowland rivers), swamps (permanently flooded land and forests), and marshes (swamps with vegetation so thick that you can walk on it).  This swamp is only about 1 1/2 ft. deep and about 6 ft. deep in the lake.  The bald cypress trees drop their needles in the fall/winter and produces acidic tannins. This makes the black/brown color of the water and repels mosquitoes. The surface of the water is covered in a tiny little green plant called duck weed, not scum.  The Spanish moss growing in the trees looks soft and feathery. It catches nutrients in the air and water and actually improves the cypress trees that host it.  Many of the bald cypress trees were hundreds of years old! The cropped look of the trees are from hurricane damage.  

All the info was great but I wanted to see alligators and we did!  We saw some babies and 2 to 3 year olds! Unfortunately because of the colder weather the majority stayed  hidden on bottom of the swamp.  Bummer!  We did see so many species of birds, turtles, plants, etc. and learned so much about this unique and amazing landscape.  It is definitely a different way of life in this area and we loved learning all about it.  Enjoy our pictures and caption explaining each one!

We stayed here for 5 days in November with our good friends from Austin, Chad and Mary Kay.  While staying in buddy sites we had visions of having our awnings and lounge chairs out, coffee and meals outside on our shared picnic table, and cool evenings with a fire.  Unfortunately, most of the weather was rainy, windy and cold which provided us with a fun time of playing games indoors with little time to enjoy our outside shared space. The onsite restaurant (Lighthouse Grill) had great food and fun music from a zydeco cajun band.

Two clear days gave us time to explore the French Quarter visiting places we had all seen 16 years ago on a trip together and little has changed even after hurricane Katrina.  New unforgettable memories of Jackson Square, drinks at Pat O’Brien’s, cafe-au-lait and beignets, amazing living statues, musical street performers including incredibly talented children, wedding parties and jazz bands strutting thru the streets.  Along with incredible cajun food and fun times with good friends.  Unique New Orleans!  A great way to spend our 39th wedding anniversary! 

We took a very informative, historical and heart wrenching 4-hour Gray Line bus tour of Hurricane Katrina areas. We learned about the why and how this hurricane was so devastating. So many destroyed homes, businesses and a deserted hospital still standing as a reminder of the ongoing recovery and resilience of a devastated city. 

We also drove on two of the nation’s longest bridges, the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge (18.2 miles) and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway (23.83 miles).

The video below contains some of the sights and sounds we saw in New Orleans. The first is the Zydeco band we saw at our RV park. The next two are street performers in the French Quarter. WARNING! this is a large file.