Tickfaw State Park

As we drove down country road after country road, then through what appeared to be a residential neighborhood, Kev turned to me and said, "Where did you find out about this place?" I gazed somewhat desparingly out the window and sighed, "It wasn't in the guidebooks, I just happened across it on the internet when all of the KOA's were closed to tent campers due to Katrina." We turned onto yet another smaller road, feeling like we were going to dead end at any moment into someone's yard. "Were you in Bundibugyo when you found it?" Double sigh on my part, "yes." Then amazingly a final turn in the road and we come upon a beautiful entrance gate to Tickfaw State Park. Let me tell you, this is a little gem of a park. The campsites are woodsy, large and fairly isolated. The roads are wide, well paved and designed for kids on bikes (of which there were tons of... all ages). The nature center was a fantastic hands-on experience with a boardwalk nature trail around back through the swamp. And to provide extra fun the park even sports a cool playground and water "splash" park. Even the comfort station (bathhouse) was well cleaned and had hot showers! Of course, our favorite thing about the bathhouse was a tiny green tree frog that seemed to hang out over the bathhouse sign every night.
While there we braved our first non-McDonalds resturant, a family owned cajun place named Paul's Cafe. Paul had eight daughters, three of them (beautfiul teenagers) were waiting tables when we came in to have Sunday lunch. Everyone seemed delighted to see us arrive, it did seem as if all of the other customers knew each other! It was a perfectly delightful place, full of small town welcome and hospitality. The food was amazing.
Next we headed to Kleibert's Alligator and Turtle Farm (another internet find). Wow, we met over 40,000 turtles in two different ponds and then an amazing number of alligators... more than a thousand in all sizes. One big female was right up against the fence. I would have sworn she was a statue, then she blinked. Goosebumps crawled up and down our arms as we all agreed she was the scariest, most dangerous looking animal we had ever seen. Another selling point for this tourist spot is alligator meat. So that night I made a light alfredo sauce with linguine noodles and.... alligator. Yum.