Caddo Lake State Park - The Good Stuff

It was hot and humid but it was a really neat place to visit.  We would like to go back during a different season so we could maybe enjoy it a little more.  The cypress trees drop their foliage and out boat tour captain said that the colors were spectacular... so maybe in the fall...  No cell phone service (ATT) in the park until you got to the front gate.  Someone said Verizon was the only cell service out there, just so you know.  Texas State Parks are working on getting wi-fi in all of their state parks but Caddo doesn't have it yet.

Site 42

About the State Park - we had campsite #42 with water & electricity.  All of the sites were really quite spacious and fairly private - lots of shrubs and brush in between.  There was one loop for tents that were spaced closer together but the RV/tent sites (our loop had tent pads as well) were all nicely spaced.  I only found two showers in one of the restrooms - the other restroom I found didn't have showers.  So if you wanted to use the showers you had quite a wait or you got up early-early.  They were OK-clean.  I mean, camping showers, what can you expect, especially with only two and a full campground??

Site 42

Hannah & Maggie

The park has nice hiking/walking trails.  None are handicapped accessible, although there were 3-4 HC campsites.

We KNOW there's a squirrel out there somewhere.

Bridge on one of the trails

One of the trails at Caddo Lake

 Hannah & Maggie hot on the trail.  

If we stopped, they flopped.

You can also rent canoes and/or kayaks at the park at the Old Port Caddo Rentals & Tours (http://www.oldportcaddo.com/).  Cindy, the owner and captain, was a hoot.  Very friendly and she is a dog-lover, allowing Hannah & Maggie to tag along on the tour with us.  The 1 hr 15 min cruise was $17.50 pp. We didn't see any gators on out tour, much to Bryan's disappointment. I know there are other tours you could take from various people that are 'gator' tours but that will be for a time when we don't have the dogs with us. Not sure how many other tour operators would allow us to bring the dogs with us. 

 Captain Cindy of Old Port Caddo Rentals & Tours

Channel to get to Big Cypress Bayou from the State Park

Bryan, Hannah & Maggie on the tour

Big Cypress Bayou

I guess there is actually a "lake proper" to Caddo Lake. By that I mean, after you meander down Big Cypress Bayou, through the swamp (backwater) you get to 'open' water.  We didn't make it that far and I think, really, the best part of Caddo is the backwater with the cypress trees, the moss... it was really very enchanting and I bet it would be SPOOOOOKKKKYYYY at night.  Very. Spooky.

Caddo Lake is a sprawling maze of bayous and sloughs covering, 26,810 acres of cypress swamp. The average depth of the lake is 8'-10' with the deep water in the bayou averaging about 20.' An angler's delight, the lake contains 71 species of fish. It is especially good for crappie and large-mouth and white bass.   I can't remember exactly now but Cindy said there are something like 42 miles of marked channels in Caddo Lake.  I know I would NOT want to be lost here and it looks like you could easily get lost but the channels we saw were very well marked - I would never leave them, that's for sure.

According to the Texas Bigfoot Research Center there have been several Bigfoot sitings.  We didn't see one of those either.  It was too damn hot for them to be out and about. But it was creepy enough for you to believe they could live there.  We did see lots of birds - blue herons and giant white egrets and the elusive, rare black crow (she says tongue-in-cheek) and squirrels, lots of them in the park.

H & M after the boat tour

Did I mention it was HOT?!?!?