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    Tattered Jeans

    Getting invited into a stranger's home brings a marriage surprise: An only in Louisiana story

    Katie Oxford
    Jun 20, 2013 | 1:22 pm

    Editor's Note: In 2010, Katie Oxford filed a series of riveting columns from the heart of the Gulf oil spill disaster. She recently returned to Louisiana. This is her ninth column in a new series. It picks up with her departing the Bayou DuLarge and finding an unexpected oasis.

    Leaving the Bayou DuLarge ain’t easy. Raw beauty alone will keep you. Something else might too.

    Light streams through here like the water. Depending on the time of day, it appears to be either sitting on things or striking them. Either way, the light makes the Bayou DuLarge go from beautiful to something beyond.

    After visiting with local fisherman Rickey Verrett at the STAB-N-CABIN, I headed north on Bayou DuLarge Road. I drove past Tommy’s STOP-N-GO, a structure across the road painted in a brilliant color of blue and a cabin that I pictured myself living in.

    I spent hours with strangers who felt like kinfolk. Only in Louisiana.

    Finally, I reached a place where I’d stopped three years before. To a statue known as Our Lady of the Bayou that I was glad to see, still stood. I parked on the shoulder of the road and moseyed over.

    I’d promised a writer friend that I would return to this place and call out her name loud and slow. Remember Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomates crying, “Towanda”? Like that.

    The promise kept, I was now walking back to my car when I looked up and noticed a fellow sitting on the front porch of a house across the road. A little embarrassed, I laughed. “You must think I’m a nut!” I yelled.

    Next thing I knew, he was coming down the steps, asking politely, why in the world I’d parked on the shoulder of the road and not in his driveway. “Here,” he said, tossing his hand out like feeding chickens, “Park anywhere you like.”

    I did, under the shade of a tree on his property, and as so often happens, spent hours with strangers who felt like kinfolk. Only in Louisiana.

    Louisiana Tough

    Buddy Wilbert Champagne and Claire Rose Champagne celebrated 56 years of marriage last February. Inside as well as outside their home, pockets of peace live everywhere. Statues, some draped in moss, are next to birdhouses that sit on the ground.

    “It hurts our heart to see the dead cypress."

    For a while we sat on their front porch and visited. Then, we moved to the back porch where Claire’s favorite flowers, sweet pea and orange blossom, were blooming and visited longer. The vista from here was both sad and stunning.

    “It hurts our heart to see the dead cypress,” Claire said softly, like reciting poetry. “In Louisiana, the salt water has killed millions of them.”

    But as she pointed out later, it’s also a living forest. Indeed. As we chatted there, my eyes continually returned to a Bald Eagle’s nest in close proximity. Claire explained that in addition to the adults, it was home to new babies and to two eagles she called teenagers, who interestingly, I learned, had returned to the nest.

    During Hurricane Rita, five feet of water came into the Champagnes' house. After Hurricane Ike, the house had flooded six times.

    No surprise to me, they’d chosen to re-build for the same reason they’d re-built before. To the people of Louisiana, place is not only at the heart of everything, it is the heart. At the Champagnes especially.

    A plaque hanging on their front porch reads: "Love Blooms Here." Peace too, I thought.

    Hours later, it was time to head back to Galliano. We walked down the steps of their front porch and Claire pointed to a plant below. Weeks before, she’d thought it was a weed and had almost pulled it up. But her daughter said, “Mama, leave it alone!”

    Turns out, the plant was a favorite food for caterpillars. Caterpillars that later Claire explained became monarch butterflies. Still later, the plant bloomed. “It’s an example of how good God is to us,” she said.

    I thanked the Champagnes for their hospitality and for opening their extraordinary place.

    “You can come here and pray anytime,” Claire offered. Then, I turned onto Bayou DuLarge Road sitting in light the color of Ginger Gold apples.

    "You can come here and pray anytime,” Claire offered.

    Katie Louisiana Revisited Part 9 June 2013 Claire Rose Champagne
      
    Photo by Katie Oxford
    "You can come here and pray anytime,” Claire offered.
    unspecified
    news/travel

    on the road

    Primitive Texas camping spot makes new list of most scenic U.S. campgrounds

    Amber Heckler
    Mar 13, 2025 | 11:15 am
    North Prong Primitive Campground
    Photo courtesy of The Dyrt camper Zach B.
    North Prong Primitive Campground is one of the best places to camp in America.

    A primitive camping spot in the Texas Panhandle has just been named one of the most scenic campgrounds in America, boasting some of the prettiest views nationwide.

    North Prong Primitive Campground is the sole Texas destination to make the cut in North American travel publication Matador Network's list of "60 Campsites With the Best Views Across the United States."

    The San Francisco-based publication collaborated with various parks organizations, tourism boards, and campground review platform The Dyrt to develop its list of the most scenic American camping spots.

    The list contains a variety of locations – from primitive sites with no amenities to full-service campgrounds with electrical hookups and WiFi – that each "represent the variety of experiences and landscapes available in each region" of the United States. The 60 sites were sorted into regional categories along the East Coast, West Coast, "Mountain West," Midwest, South, and in Alaska, Hawai’i, and other U.S. territories.

    "Camping in the United States is as much about the landscapes as it is about the experience of being outdoors," the report said. "The country’s diverse geography and sheer size give it some of the most striking natural views in the world, from towering mountain ranges to vast desert expanses, dense forests, remote coastlines, shimmering glaciers, and even tropical rainforests."

    North Prong Primitive Campground stood out among Matador's top-10 list of "Prettiest Places to Camp in the South." The campground is located within Caprock Canyons State Park in Quitaque, Texas, which is over 500 miles northwest from Houston.

    There are eight different secluded campsites for visitors to pitch their tents at North Prong, offering breathtaking views of the park's red rock canyons and the wide-open Texas sky.

    North Prong Primitive Campground at Caprock Canyons State ParkGet ready to hike to reach the campground.Photo courtesy of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

    "Most tent sites have expansive views of canyons with flat clearings on vivid red dirt and are dotted with cottonwood trees and scrub oaks," the report says. "The colors are vivid as can be at sunrise and sunset when light magnifies off steep red canyon walls in the distance."

    According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, it's a one-mile hike to reach the camping area, and visitors must bring their own drinking water and keep pets on a leash at all times. There are no trash cans on-site, so all trash must be carried out by campers, but the area does have composting toilets nearby. Ground fires are not allowed.

    Matador recommends travelers book a reservation to gain access to the area, but clarifies that reservations do not provide access to one of the eight camping sites.

    The report suggests traveling to the Panhandle campground during the spring when the weather isn't too hot yet, or in the fall months when there may be fewer dramatic temperature fluctuations.

    "The South’s relatively mild winters make it a year-round camping destination, but summer heat and humidity can be intense, especially in the Deep South," the report said.

    The top 10 best places to camp in the South are:

    • Devils Fork State Park, South Carolina
    • Garden Key, Florida
    • North Long Primitive Campground, Texas
    • Edgar Evins State Park, Tennessee
    • Jekyll Island State Park, Georgia
    • Stone Cliff Beach Campground, West Virginia
    • Gulf State Park, Alabama
    • Red River Gorge Geological Area, Kentucky
    • Seneca Shadows Campground, West Virginia
    • Chikee Wilderness Camping, Florida
    travelcampingwest texas
    news/travel
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