February 16, 2004 - Nacogdoches, TX

We're at the Foretravel factory getting some cracking tile grout re-done, and some other maintenance stuff, like lube-oil-filter for both the main engine and the generator engine taken care of.  And then we'll just stay here until Barb's driving class next week.  The factory is also "sponsoring" the 4 day class called "Ladies Driving School".  There's 22 rigs signed up for it, so we're hoping it's worth it.  From the reports and pictures, it sure looks like the ladies are having fun at it.  And they get to drive new motorhomes to boot!  Two days of classroom and hands on stuff with the motorhome, a day of "controlled" driving in the huge parking lots around here, and then the final day of driving on public roads and freeways.  We'll keep you up to date as best we can.  In the mean time............

We wanted to spend a few days in LA (and that's not Los Angels, it's Louisiana) and followed the advice of friends Jim and Elaine and  Barb "Betty's RV Park" in Abbeville.  Well, a friendlier park owner is going to be hard to find.  Betty "encouraged" us to be there in time so we could join "the gang" and go listen to the Cajun music jam session.  That was at 2 PM and we're about 385 miles away!  Well, we popped out of bed before the sun was up, skipped breakfast, ate some food bars for lunch, stopped only as nature demanded and made it by 1 PM.  By 1:30 we were checked in, hooked up, fresh shirts donned, and off to see what this Cajun music was all about.  And it was all about fun!  Including Betty, there were 13 of us from the 12 site RV park she has in her yard.  Most of the others knew each other and were all pulling King Of The Road 5th wheel trailers.  They folded us in like there wasn't anything unusual about the fact we were the only motorhome in the park.  The mural behind the band features D. L. Menard, who is one of the greats of Cajun music.  At least that's what we were told.  I was fascinated by this little accordion the guys played.  It has a special name I can't recall, and is the state musical instrument.  Notice the ring finger of the guy playing it.  A big part of it is missing!  Didn't hurt his playing at all!  It was fun happy toe-tapping music, and so was the crowd.  And it really didn't take many of us to make it a crowd.

That's "our" crowd, and while several of the guys sang, I couldn't understand a single word, and Barb (who used to speak fluent French) could only grab a word here and there.  The Cajun "French" is full of it's own local words.

Some of the "gang" danced, and then another singer.....that I couldn't understand either!  And the music was a lot happier than the expression on his face.  I could pronounce the name on his hat, but when I say it, it only has one syllable.  It seems like it has three when they say it.

A typical shot of Betty.  She's one happy woman, and intent on those around her enjoying themselves as well.  And the name of the place where we were.  Go ahead, say it out loud.  I sure can't.  At least not the way these people (and Barb) said it.

See the name of the bank?  Well, that's the name of the town we were in for the music.  And if you trade the "a" and the "r", you'll spell what the name means in English.  One of the musicians belonged to the Cajun French Music Association, but I can't understand which chapter he's a member of.

It was the first "family" bar I've ever been in.  The older brother was strumming in time with the music, and little sister kept playing with her gum!  Mom, dad and grandma were either playing on stage (dad played both guitar and that little accordion thing) or dancing the whole time.

On Sunday in Abbeville, about the only thing that a tourist can find that's open, is a church!  So, off we went.  Now here's a question for you.  Why is it that all (almost) gravesites are in the east-west direction, rather than in a north-south direction?  It's not a trick question, nor do I have the answer.  If you know, drop us a line, OK?  daveandbarbj(at)etcetera4.net.  Replace the (at) with @ and we'll get your message, and I'll brag on you here on the site.  Oh yeah, the boxes.  Here in LA they used to put the bodies above ground so they wouldn't float up when it flooded.  Flood control has apparently negated the necessity of that practice in recent times.

For those of you who are French or at least Cajun, here's the same sign on the other side.  The beautiful church was having some restoration work done on it.  When we went inside, the stained-glass/painted windows were beautiful.  But you'll have to take my word for it, as I was nervous about taking pictures of a the place with people in it.

I've seen double parking before, but for a couple of blocks?  The church didn't have any parking lot, so the parishioners would just block traffic!  Of course, on a Sunday morning, the only traffic there was us crazy tourists and people going to church.  And since we had a day to kill, we drove to the end of the road going south, hoping to get to the gulf of Mexico.  And we almost made it.  These are shrimp boats.  And all the years of listening to "Shrimp Boats Are A' Coming" didn't prepare me for these modern killing machines.  Hundreds of them in several different marinas along this canal, or bayou as they call them here.

There were some locks that we wanted to see at the end of the road, and we went through Intracoastal City on the way.  The town is pretty much devoted to two things.  Shrimp and oil.  And the support of those two industries.  Offshore oil rigs, or platforms as those of us from Alaska call them.  Lots of helicopters and all the rest of the support equipment for the rigs were all over the place.  Near as we could figure, this row of barges with the pilings were some kind of service rig for the platforms.  And then here came a barge heading for the locks.  Actually it's two barges being pushed by a big tug.

Two BIG barges.  A blue one and a red one.  Wonder what the significance of the colors was.  And we also wondered what they would be carrying and where they were taking it.  Questions, questions, questions.  Yeah, we learn a lot by poking around playing tourist, but it seems the more we learn the more questions we have.

The man (in blue -- on the red barge) gives a bit of perspective as to how big they were, and look at that!  The tug is called the Aberdeen!  There's a town near Seattle by that name, and we've been there many times.  Wonder if there's a connection between the two.  Yeah, I know, more questions........

On the way back from not being able to see the locks because it was Sunday and they were closed, we turned around and headed back home, and saw that one of those barges we think may be support for the offshore platforms was actually up on it's pilings.  Called the Superior, I don't suppose it's got anything to do with the lake by the same name, but who knows.  Lots of open deck space flanked by those two yellow cranes.  Wonder what......... oh, never mind.

I'll bet that at one time, that was one fine home.  Sure would like to know the story behind it...and it's desertion.  And guess who spotted the cats!  Actually, when she first saw them and made me stop, there was just the white one coming out of the end of the pipe.

We spent a fair amount of time waiting for the tabby to come out of its hiding place, and when it did, the white one seemed to ask it why it had bothered.  LA is one place in the U.S. where fighting cocks are still sported, and this farmer is raising a bunch of them.  I'd like to see a cock fight sometime, not because I like to see birds trying (and succeeding) to kill each other, but I'm a people watcher, and I'd love to watch the bettors.  It's an ancient form of sport and has a very colorful past in many different countries as I understand it.  Given the opportunity to watch a boxing match or a cock fight, I'd choose the dumb chickens any time.  I find it barbaric that we so enjoy watching two men pummel each other until one of them is unconscious.  OK, off my soapbox.

On Monday we decided to tour the Tabasco factory on Avery Island.  The island is owned by the McIlhenny family, and has been for many years.  For many years I was a member of the AMA (American Motorcycle Association) and about 10 years of so ago, they were instrumental in changing the law to allow motorcycles on the island, thanks in no small part by getting the members to write letters and send money for the legal battle, and I was a participant in all that.  For some reason it seemed important to me to go onto the island, even if it was in the Jeep.  And as soon as we crossed the bridge taking us to the island, we were stuck for a $.50 "toll".  That really set my teeth on edge.  Barb nicely asked why the toll, and the money taker said something about it being private property, and the sign about our "protection" didn't really make any sense.  That kind of a "toll" is way out of line in my opinion.  At $.50 per car, the toll takers salary isn't even being met.  It's just an irritant as far as I'm concerned.  A $5 toll would have made more sense and not have made me nearly as mad as that niggling $.50 did.  Sort of colored the rest of the tour for me.  Yeah, I liked learning about the stuff, and yeah, we went into the gift shop and spent money, but there was no way I was going to pay the $6.50 each to drive the 4 miles around the bird sanctuary after they'd dinged me for that lousy $.50!  And dang it, we like looking at birds.   Gee, my soap box seems to be real handy this evening. Sorry.  Back to the pictures.  They grow crawfish down here.  Lots of them.  And they do it in rice paddies a lot.  And they use this "boat" to harvest them.  That's hydraulic wheel that drives and steers the boat over the shallow water so the two people in the boat can pick up the traps, empty the crawfish into sacks, bait the trap and put it back and go to the next trap.  More on that later.  And Barb posing by the obligatory "here we are" sign.

We both love to watch production equipment doing its thing, and that part was fun.  And the museum was pretty cool, too.  What impressed us most however, was the marketing these folks have done and are doing.  Every imaginable thing that anybody could use, wear, or eat with, can be bought with the Tabasco logo on it.  Yes, they're into the modern stuff as there are mouse pads with the logo as well.  When we finished our time here, it was about 10:30 AM and we still had plenty of day left, so Barb suggested we visit the Crystal Rice Plantation and see how they grow rice and crawfish in the same ponds, and see the museum of historic LA stuff, and on and on.  She was reading the brochure to me as I drove.  Our moods were a little dark for a variety of reasons.  Not only because of the dang $.50 I was having trouble letting go of, but it seemed to us that LA in general was a mess.  There is garbage alongside almost every road we've been on, the roads themselves are pitiful there is rampant poverty in evidence everywhere, it's either been raining or the wind has been blowing or both, it's cold and overcast, and we're even a little edgy with each other.  I told Barb that if it wasn't for Betty's cooking our first gumbo dinner for the gang on Saturday night, and her cheerily fixing biscuits to go with her coffee in the morning, and telling us all the great things to see, and telling stories about the people of this region, LA had little to offer me, and I had no desire to spend any time here again.  Barb just sort of kept quiet except for giving me directions on how to drive the 60 miles to the plantation.  And then when we were about 5 miles from our destination, Barb apologetically told me she was truly, truly sorry, but the brochure said the plantation was closed on Mondays.  Well, that did it.  We had to laugh.  And we decided that since we were that close, we'd continue and see if we couldn't at least drive around and see what there was to see.  Johnny was the gate guard, and he had more than two teeth, and he was polite and nice, but he was also not going to let us onto the property without a tour guide.  And then he gave us the flyer of the tour guide.  A Miss Alice who lived in Crowley, the small town about 5 miles back down the road.  It gave her phone number (but I couldn't call her -- we were out of cell range -- which if you know me at all, you know makes me crazy in itself!) and address.  We drove around an found her place, half expecting some kind of office. But no, here was a beautiful Victorian house, all neat, clean and pretty.  I made Barb go ring the bell, and a fellow with a beard came out and called for Miss Alice after hearing Barb's request.  And Alice said that she'd be happy to take us out on an hour and a half tour for $15 each.  I was feeling a little guilty about not seeing the bird sanctuary (but only a little...if Barb had really wanted to have seen it, we'd have gone) and I really did want to learn about this rice/crawfish thing, so we agreed to the tour.

While Miss Alice changed her clothes (she'd been painting) we wandered the neighborhood a bit.  I liked the fact that English was the language at the top of the sign (this IS America, after all) and thought it "quaint" that they'd have the French there as well.  And off we went.  Miss Alice rode in the Jeep with us, and we could ply her with all our questions.  Some of which she artfully dodged, explaining that we could take a tour to find that kind of stuff out if we wanted, and we just as artfully explained we lived in an RV and would be leaving the area tomorrow.  She kindly relented and told us all about the beautiful town of Crowley eventually, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  This was a new experience for us.  Our own private tour.  Sort of like the difference between going fishing on the party boat or chartering one yourself.  During the video, Alice would stop the tape and further explain things to us and answer our unending questions.  She had this tub full of the rice and taught us why this particular strain of rice is so good, and how it was developed and all that.  She also explained to us how the rice and crawfish are rather compatible.  The baby crawfish will eat the algae that grows on the rice plants, helping the health of the plant.  When the fields are drained for harvest, the crawfish will burrow down into the mud and thus be protected, only to pop up again when the fields are flooded again for the next crop.

That's the crawfish trap between Barb and Alice, and if you look closely, you can see the PVC pipe at the top has this part that has been heated and bent over, making a nice handle for the person picking it up out of the water.  It's then turned upside down over a contraption that is holding a bag, re-baited with either a commercially produced bait or simply old fish parts, and dropped back into the water.  They pull the traps about twice a week when it's cold and daily when it's warmer.  Like the rest of us, the crawfish are more active when it's warm.  Barb's holding a box of cereal from Kellogg's, which is a big user of rice, as you may know.  Nice rendering of the logo, eh?

A side view of the harvesting boat.  What is not seen are the wheels in front of the boat.  It has wheels up there so the boat can be driven up and over the levy and into the next pond.  Those are the traps sticking up in the water between us and the boat.  And here comes a load of crawfish, being backed into the shed we're standing in.

Nobody has yet told me how these little buggers can breath underwater and still stay alive out of it.  And how they can burrow such deep holes, and how......, well, you get the picture.  The scales showed each bag to average about 35# of crawfish.  They'll be held for a broker who will buy them, pick them up and sell them to local restaurants or ship them to someplace else.  Ugly little suckers, aren't they?

Well, the sign sort of tells the story of the house.  And someplace along the way, Miss Alice told us where the name Cajun came from.  The "Acadians" were called that because when they came largely from France because of religious persecution (and I'll stay off my soap box here -- but it's hard!) they went to Nova Scotia which at that time was called Acadia, and owned by the French.  When it became under English rule, the English insisted the residents join the Anglican church, and these people would have none of it, and they scattered along the eastern seaboard, and a large contingent settled in this area.  The French pronunciation of the word Acadian gave rise to the English mis-pronouncing and shortening it to "Cajun".  Creole is the mixture of the indigenous peoples (Indians, mostly) and the Cajun, and the music of the black people who mixed with the French and Indian is called Zydaco.  Many similarities of the different ethnic groups, and yet some clear distinctions.  Fascinating stuff, I think, and worthy of more study.....later.  Can you sense a change of mood and opinion of LA here?  I hope you can.  It's mostly positive by now, and we're sorry we didn't allow more time to visit the Acadian villages in the area and learn more about the trouble those people had because of their religious beliefs.  What makes this house distinctively Acadian according to Miss Alice is the simple roof line, extending out over the single porch.  Elegant in its simplicity.  But wait until you see what Mrs. Wright did with some of her wealthy husband's money!

She traveled the world and collected beautiful things to bring home to share with other people!  This house was originally used as a "normal" home, but when it was moved here, it was to display these pretty things for friends and family.  See that large silver pot/bowl/soup tureen on the table?  It's from France, I think.  Maybe it's from England.  Anyway, it's from Europe someplace.

And there's a crawfish on it!  They eat these little buggers all over the place.  So why does a California boy like me find them rather disgusting?  As a kid we called them crawdads, and we threw them back or used them for bait if we happened to catch one when we were fishing for catfish in the local streams and rivers.  I particularly liked this display of dishes on a box with shelves that you could store the extra table leaves in!  What a clever idea to have both the dishes and the leaves handy in the dining room.  Don't have that in modern homes or even any of the old ones I lived in.

The oldest piece is this chair, built in 1793.  And some of Mrs. Wright's shoes/boots.  No wonder not many pictures of women of this era show them smiling very much.

A lacy fan laying on two gowns, all three of which were exquisite in their detail and beauty.  And this is the head board for a bed that was carved by the same man that carved the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom.

No flash was allowed in the museum, and hand-holding shots that take a long shutter time limit the good shots I could have had if I'd had the patience to go back to the Jeep and retrieve the tripod, but this mirror is a match for the headboard.  And speaking of headboards, Miss Alice explained the reason the top of this one is removable.  It looks like a rolling pin, doesn't it?  Well, it is.  To roll the wrinkles and lumps out of the down comforter on the bed!  What useful pretty piece of work it is, too.  The stitching on the pillow case is of a child in bed with the words "good night".

The plantation isn't nearly as involved in the growing of rice as it is in the enrichment of it.  Adding chemicals to replace all those we take out when we remove the outer covering and make it white rather than eating it in its natural brown state.  Hummmm.   And the thought of "breeding" plants was a new one to me.  Conjures up all kinds of odd images in my warped little brain.

The blue tarps are hung from the roof of the nice porch when it's cold, raining, and windy.  And the lady in purple was outside until the weather began to do ugly things to her hair.  The festive Mardi Gras season is fast approaching.  This is where Betty fed us something twice a day.  This gang of people who mostly already knew each other before they got here would kick in and it would turn out to be sort of a pot luck on nights Betty wasn't doing the main dish.  In the background of the picture of Betty and one of the other women, you can see the propane heater.  It was a popular item during the evening meal, you can bet!  I told Betty (and anybody within earshot) that I didn't think she had a RV park, I thought she had a perpetual family reunion.  I told Miss Alice about Betty, and when I told Betty about the fun we'd had with Alice, she mentioned she'd heard good things about her too.  You can check out Betty's place at www.bettysrvpark.com and while we seldom endorse businesses, we do heartily endorse Betty's RV park to anybody who likes people and wants a little of the local flavor of southern LA.  We'd also suggest you call for reservations well in advance, as she only has 12 spaces.  They are full hookup sites, and the only drawback we saw was the fact that our Verizon cell phone wouldn't work with the America's Choice nationwide plan we have.  Well, it would work, but it would cost us $.40 per minute.

And there you have it.