Living the Full-time Dream: Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

We spent four days in New Orleans, Feb. 18-22. We stayed at New Orleans KOA, which I selected because it had a shuttle into the French Quarter, but the shuttle only left the campground at 9:00 am and 5:00 pm, with one pick up at 5:45 pm. We never used it and the campground was pretty disappointing in general. Some highlights of our trip included walking along the riverfront and listening to the calliope on the Steamboat Natchez, cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde, seeing the houses along the parade route from the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus (thank you Scott and Karen for talking us into doing that!), visiting Barataria Preserve at Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve with Janet and Jim Zadina, blackened catfish smothered with crawfish ettouffee at Restaurant des Familles and the birthday King Cake Janet got Jim with strawberries and cream that was to die for!

I'm glad we had the experience, but New Orleans was very crowded, some parts were pretty seedy and driving and parking were a total nightmare. So when we moved on to Breaux Bridge, it was a welcome change of pace. This is not the first time we have found the well know city destination to be too much for our small town comfort zone, and some unknown nearby destination to be much more our speed. While we thought Asheville, NC was very cool, it was a busy city that was at times very overwhelming. Nearby Black Mountain, NC was the small town vibe we really found appealing.

Breaux Bridge is 2 hours west of New Orleans, near Lafayette, LA. We are staying at Poche's RV Park and Fish Camp. We've been here four days and leave tomorrow. We are very happy with this campground. There is plenty of space, grassy sites, clean showers, small campground store, ice for sale, a pool and splashpad for kids (though it's too cool to pool) and if you wish, you are free to fish. This was our view upon setting up.

Looking across the pond from our site

Our site

We've been very comfortable here and are loving the wide open space, the quiet, the birds, and the water. Sometimes people ask what we do all day. In reality it varies, but there are days that involve a lot of reading and doing crossword puzzles. There are days that involve doing laundry and grocery shopping. There are days that involve going on grand adventures or little explores. If you follow me on FaceBook, you know there are days that involve finding local breweries and sampling local beer. We did check out two local breweries; Bayou Teche Brewing and Parish Brewing Company. We both liked the DDH Operation Juice Drop at Parish Brewing. As with many great craft brews, only available on tap.

We took a wander through downtown Breaux Bridge which features a number of charming antique and gift shops, a great coffee shop Joie de Vivre Coffee and Culture Cafe, La Petite Carolina an artists' collective and artspace and Buck and Johnny's restaurant featuring Zydeco Breakfast, which unfortunately we did not make it to.

We discovered a great local option for refilling our gallon water jugs. Watermill Express is the largest drive-up pure drinking water company in the nation and the green alternative to prepackaged water. We use bottled water for drinking, making ice and coffee. We use campground water for washing and flushing. Rather than buy new gallons of water, we've been using water refill stations. One of the campgrounds we were at had a refill station on site. We've also found them inside Publix and at water and ice machines similar to this one. 25 cents a gallon - can't beat it!

Another explore we took was of the Nature Conservancy's Cypress Island Preserve to see their bird sanctuary. We saw more great egrets than I could capture, but these are some of the pictures I took.

Great Egret flying to tree

Great Egret sitting on branch

Great Egret walking in marsh

Great Egret in flight

I've really become taken with birdwatching. Often times at campgrounds it's possible to watch birds while sitting at your site. We have been enjoying 2 male and one female cardinal who have been in the trees around our site quite regularly, serenading us every morning. Many times I will see a bird, but not be able to identify it. I keep my binoculars handy so I can check out it's colors and features, and use the most wonderful app on my phone: Merlin Bird ID. This is a free app created by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. If you have the slightest interest in bird watching or bird identification, I highly recommend this app. In addition to the cardinals, which I don't need an app to identify, I also saw a yellow-rumped warbler (too tiny to photograph) and a mocking bird. Carol commented today that we've seen more birds at the campground than at the bird sanctuary.