Acadiana Park Nature Station — Attraction in Lafayette

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS PLACE! if you love tall, old, shady trees to camp under, and walk through, this is the place!

“Dell” came to mind when we first drove in. The campground is in a little valley. Every site is shady. We are in a camper van, but if we were in anything larger, I can see a problem because of all the trees and angles to dodge while setting up.

We are here in the last days of July, so it’s extremely hot and humid, but that’s the South for you! We camp with our dogs, so the many shaded boardwalks are perfect. Bring bug spray.

The campground is long and there is only one building with toilets and showers. It’s a bit of a hike if you park at the far end of the camping area, so keep that in mind when you decide where to set up. We are the only ones here tonight (last Thursday of July), and we picked a spot between the nature center (which is closed) and the bathroom, #19). Which reminds me, there are a couple of cute playgrounds for the kids here.

Any negatives have been mentioned, but the natural beauty can’t be beat. We would return if we ever come this way again. Only $28 to...

TO BE AVOIDED ON SEPTEMBER MORNINGS

We're tourists and decided to try and go for a morning run here, on a balmy September morning, around 8am - likely before other people had come through to unwittingly sacrifice themselves to save those that would come through later in the day.

As such we encountered a vertiable spider Apocalypse. By spider I'm talking about handspan size mutants that had gleefully spun their enourmous cobwebs across the entire path, including paths 2 meters in width. Normally I dont mind Spiders, especially when they keep to themselves in a corner somewhere, but these were the highway robbers of the spider kingdom. Impossible to get past without standing and delivering.

Nowhere seemed to be safe and we cleared about a dozen webs in the space of a mile, before deciding to turn back for both our sake and the sake of the aracnids.

They were big. They were everywhere. They were impossible to get past without a very long stick to (gently) shift the web.

I wouldn't call myself an arachnophobe, but this was something else. At least I've now learned about spider...

GPS took us to the wrong parking lot, but we wandered into the woods anyway. Following a disc golf course, ended up on a wooden pier trail – good enough! Strolling about the foliage, my partner notices a mass of blue caterpillars just straight up vibing on a fence railing. I stop to admire them, and I hear a voice behind me: “The blue ones aren’t poisonous.” I thought we were alone and when I turned a pleasant woman was standing there offering me a caterpillar to hold. It felt like a video game 😂 I held it and asked if she worked there, and she gestured to a building we’d walked right by, and inside was a neat little museum! It was about to close, but a quick browse through the snakes in enclosures, fossilized insects, and charts of local plants and animals (plus some AC) was perfect. Along the trail itself was also nice; each pathway had a cute name, and there were signs up to protect certain areas for regrowth. The scenery was gorgeous, and it was a wonderful way to spend my...