November 3rd through 9th, 2024
With a name like "Cypress Black Bayou," our campground in Benton, Louisiana promised to be a great place. For a few reasons, it ended up being not memorable and slightly annoying. It was a pretty cool campground in the trees next to a reservoir, but it was late in the season, and we nearly had the place to ourselves. The weather was rainy and overcast almost the entire time. The campground was a long way down a road, and then our site was a long distance into the campground.
The seclusion was nice, but it came with a lot of stink bugs, gnats, ants, and the biggest spider we'd ever seen welcomed us to our site (kayaking didn't seem like a good option). There wasn't much to do, and it wasn't our favorite spot (and no pickleball!). But in some ways, it was nice to relax after having such full days over the entire spring, summer, and fall.
We drove from Mississippi (a fantastic time in comparison) and stopped at the Poverty Point World Heritage Site on the way. What a highlight! People built a huge city and huge mounds of earth until they left the area in 1100 B.C. That's about all they know about it, but there are so many mysteries. We took an open-air tram with a guide who had a lot of knowledge, and it was so interesting. We stayed a long while, and ended up getting to our campground a little later than we wanted to. It was worth it.
Margot was even able to use an atlatl to throw an arrow pretty far. Cool!
We were in Louisiana for two weeks, and on one of the weekend days we went up to Hope, Arkansas to visit the President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site (that's a mouthful!). One of the best things was learning about how they turned around a home that probably needed to be condemned into the restored home it is now. They are proud to have been his boyhood town, and his story is pretty interesting. We also discovered the show "Gutsy" that we've been watching and really enjoying -- some time with Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and some amazing stories from other women.
Perhaps we have been too critical of Cypress Black Bayou -- maybe it was the timing and the weather that gave us this opinion. Maybe it was our electricity that kept going out (though the camp host replaced the bad breaker on the pedestal right away after we did some troubleshooting). On the day when the weather cleared up, we walked around a bit, and the park is very scenic at the water's edges. We imagined it full of RVs and happy families, and it would have made a different impression on us.
We decided to leave a day early and spend a day in Natchitoches, which ended up being a fabulous decision (we should have left for that place earlier). Even though we are seeing so much of this huge and colorful country, there is still so much we won't have time to experience. In the end, even the not-so-memorable spots are still pretty good.
