Betty's RV Park - April 25 - May 5, 2015

Rating: 5 on a scale of 5

Location:  The park is located in Abbeville, LA, a small town south of Lafayette. The town is well known for its wonderful cajun restaurants/food and zydeco/cajun music venues. Also, we found so many interesting sights to see in the surrounding area including the Tabasco Factory, Jungle Gardens, Rip Van Winkle Gardens, Champagne's Swamp Tour, Vermilionville Living History Park, and more. Also, there are festivals almost every weekend in the area; we enjoyed going to two of them. We are making our way from Texas to New Orleans and this was a perfect location in between.

Lot size:  This is a small park, but our lot was of generous size. We had plenty of room to park our tow dolly and car with the motor coach.

Amenities:  The primary amenities here are Betty's Louisiana Room, a gathering place for guests for potluck dinners and other activities. There are maps and brochures and lending library as well. But the Covered Pavilion is where we spent our time together with Betty and other RV guests at the park.

Betty hosts a daily happy hour at 4:30 every day here. Everyone brings appetizers to share and their own beverages. Betty also made us some delicious red beans and rice and jambalaya while we were there. We shared several evening meals here as well mostly featuring crawfish. Having never eaten mudbugs, I was lucky enough to get a great education in how to peel/eat them. Now I love them! We ordered our first crawfish dinner from a local restaurant and prepared the second one at Betty's (she coordinated both, of course).  Here are some photos of the first crawfish dinner.

Everyone had fun preparing our own crawfish boil (Betty provided the directions). Here is a pic of  the 40-lb. bag of fresh crawfish. And the ingredients (minus the beer ... that was someone's beverage).

The supervisors (Jerry, John, Sue, and Nanci)! John captured an escapee that got out of the bag and was making his way across the parking lot. While John helped with the food preparation, Jim and Dan along with Nanci and Merlene really did most of the work. John didn't eat any crawfish, though, he had fried chicken instead!

And finished product, plus boiled potatoes and corn on the cob. Yum!!

The wifi here was very good (I was so happy to get some good iCloud backups). If you're looking for a pool, hot tub, etc., this is not the place for you. However, if you are looking to make new and lasting friends and enjoy this wonderful part of Louisiana, it is the perfect place to do so!

Cost:  Approximately $150/week.

Management: What's the best part about this park, Betty, of course!

She can tell you anything you want to know about the area (where to eat, sights to see, music venues, the history of Abbeville and Lafayette, etc.)  But the best thing about Betty is that she is FUN. She facilitates the social activities and joins in as well. We got to meet some of her family (sons, daughter-in-law, beautiful granddaughter, and niece and her husband). By the time you leave this RV park, you feel like part of the family! She maintains long term friendships with many of her guests and they keep coming back to her park. Honestly, she is fabulous.

General Comments:  Betty closes the park for the summer months (June, July, August) when the weather is so very hot here. We will definitely stay here again when we are in this part of the country. We had heard about this park from fellow RVers, Ed and Marilyn Dray, we met when we were in Colorado Springs. Here are some photos of some of the new friends we made here.

Renate ... a single woman from Germany traveling the U.S. with her sweet doggy, Rocky.

Betty; Jim and Nanci (from Western PA) who have a blog that we will be following (www.runningdownourdream.blogspot.com); Merlene and Dan (from Southern California). Both of these couples have been RVing for years and shared some of their interesting experiences with us. Not pictured are Wendy and Ray who left to work at Custer State Park in South Dakota who have a blog (www.ray-wendy.blogspot.com) that we will be following as well. Another couple, Sue and Jerry from Massachusetts now live in Myrtle Beach, SC (where John and I spent time in our youth). We will likely contact them when we are in that part of the country.

Thanks to Betty and all of the RVers here who welcomed us to the good times. Folks come here for a few days and end up staying much longer as they get stuck in Betty's web!

Website:  www.bettysrvpark.com