$11 and a Handful of Quarters: The Night I Had a City Park All to Myself

Sometimes the best campsites aren’t the ones you plan for.

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I pulled into Oak Grove, Louisiana not really knowing what to expect. It was one of those small towns you pass through and think — wait, what’s that? And what caught my eye was a city park with a little sign that said camping was available. Pay by the honor system. Eleven dollars a night.

Eleven dollars. I almost laughed.

I had my Volvo camper, a full evening ahead of me, and absolutely nowhere I needed to be. So I pulled in.

The setup was as simple as it gets. There’s a little payment box — the kind that runs completely on the trust that people are decent — and I fed it a $10 bill and four quarters. That’s it. No check-in desk. No app. No QR code. Just you, your cash, and your conscience. Moments later I had a spot with electricity and water hookups. For eleven dollars. In 2024. I’m still not over it.

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The park was quiet. Actually, quiet is an understatement — I was the only camper there. The whole place was mine. Just me, the Louisiana evening air, and the distant sound of frogs doing what frogs do best.

I set up near this old log house that sat at the edge of the park. Charming in that weathered, historical kind of way. I was admiring it when I noticed one cat. Then another. Then I started counting and somewhere around fifteen I stopped because it became clear this was going to take a while.

There were at least fifty cats living around that log house. Maybe more. They weren’t aggressive — they were just there, going about their business like they owned the place. Which, honestly, they kind of did. Some lounged on the porch. Some disappeared into the brush. A few wandered over to check me out, decided I was uninteresting, and went back to cat business.

I’m not a cat person, exactly, but I respected the commitment. That log house had a whole colony going and nobody was bothering anybody.

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I made dinner, sat outside in the quiet, and just... existed for a while. No crowds. No noise. No neighbors with a generator running all night. Just a warm Louisiana evening, a sky full of stars, and fifty cats living their best lives twenty yards away.

There’s something really special about these little trust-based stops you stumble into on the road. No corporation took my credit card. No algorithm matched me to a campsite. A small town just put out a box and said we trust you — and that means something.

Oak Grove city park, you were a gem. Ten dollars and four quarters well spent.

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Have you ever stumbled into an unexpected campsite that turned out to be the highlight of a trip? Drop it in the comments — I want to hear about it.

Kindly,

Carol