Shrimp and Petroleum Festival (31st August)

We are spending the day in Morgan City to be part of the Shrimp and Petroleum festival. We are off to Mass (that's church, 2 Sundays in a row!!) to see the blessing of the festival, including the blessing of the crowns for the king and queen. Then we are down at the harbour to witness the blessing of the fleet (and the fleet is any boat that sails) plus the king and queen having a toast as 2 tugs meet back to back. There is an extensive art and craft market located under the bridges, with jewelry, pictures, woodwork, etc. Just different from what we usually see. The food stalls are serving the stock standard fair for a US fair! Then to the park to listen to some music. It is a Zydeco band, a mixture of Cajun and blues. There is a parade ... where would we be without a parade. The usual floats pulled by trucks and quite a few high school bands. A short respite before returning later in the evening, to try some of the delicacies (not!!) then to move to City Hall to view the fire works. Yes we got an invite after Russ went up to the Mayor and introduced himself while we were waiting for the fleet to be blessed. Great day.

Cajun Music and Rain (30th August)

The day dawns gloomy and it is raining. Not your gentle sun shower, but belting down, "can't see 30m" rain. We leave when the rain slackens a bit, but it doesn't last for long and it is pouring down again. Anyway we arrive at the Bar by 8:50, and have settled in. The bar hosts a radio show every Saturday morning with live Cajun Music. We watch some of the people country dancing to the tunes, but they are sung in French so we don't know what they are about. Cajun Music requires a fiddle and a piano accordion, and this mornings band also has a steel slide guitar, a bass and drums. The music is a folksy country sound with a sort of polka rhythm. The rain hasn't slackened off any but does as we head for Opelousas and the Evangeline racetrack and Casino. The races start at around 5pm on a dirt track, but there are plenty of slot machines to keep people busy!! We visit Lafayette, the capitol of French Louisiana, and view a fine court house and Cathedral. Our scenic viewing is curtailed as the rain comes and goes, but we pass rice paddies, sugar cane and soy beans. We have lunch at a Cajun Restaurant in Breaux Bridge. Great food. Cypress Island Preserve is a bird reserve located in a swamp. The rain abates enough for us to get a couple of pictures. At St. Martinville we see a statue of Evangeline at St. Martins Church and she is the depiction of the character Evangeline in the Henry Wardsworth Longfellow poem of the same name. Don't bother to look it up, it is the longest poem in history!. It is a slow drive to Morgan City due to the rain, it is intense. We arrive, do some washing and finally the rain has stopped, so maybe a good sign for the festival tomorrow.

Cajun Country (29th August)

Today we traveled south to the Gulf of Mexico and the swamps of Louisiana. Visited a wildlife Refuge and found some 'gaters and a lot of birds. But the rain came which spoilt our viewing of the Gulf - it was grey and stormy looking, however we saw a fair few off shore oil or gas rigs. For lunch we stopped at Shucks at Abbeville, and if you are in an oyster bar, you just have to have oysters. Though Russ did have seafood pasta, and by the time he ate all the seafood, he just didn't have room for the pasta. What a feed!! Afterwards, we explore Abbeville a little bit more, looking at the square (the city layout is based on a French village) with its large Oaks and statue of the monk that founded the town, and the St. Magdalen Church. In Rayne, the frog capital of the world, there are a statues of frogs outside businesses depicting the owner of the business. They are very cleverly done. Our overnight stop is in Crowley, and the town had one of the first model-T Ford dealerships. Today the building houses City Hall but they still have 3 Model-Ts on show.

Music and Cotton (28th August)

We leave Natchez and cross the mighty Mississippi back into Louisiana. At Ferriday, we look through the Delta Music Museum. Ferriday is the birthplace of Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Lee Swaggart (country music singer and evangelist) and Mickey Gilley (country music and nightclub owner). A small but very informative museum on all 3 of their famous sons, plus quite a few more singers from the Mississippi Delta region. Further on we stop at Frogmore to look at what went on at a Cotton Plantation. At one time both sides of the Mississippi supported a large number of cotton plantations. Cotton is still grown here but machinery has replaced the slave labour of 200 years ago and the share cropping from a mere 50 years ago. We have a very interesting tour of the buildings and see just how labour intensive is was to produce raw cotton. We head west and south for the rest of the day to finish at Lake Charles, a mere 30 miles from Texas. Along the way we do see a Cowboy Church. You have to remember that around here there are a lot of churches but this is the first one we have seen for cowboys and there is a rodeo ring out the back.

Historical Places (27th August)

We visit the historical districts of Zachery and St. Francisville to see the lovely homes of the South from the middle of the 1800's. Further north we cross the border into Mississippi and set off for Natchez which will be our base for the evening. A very nice carriage tour takes us past the early 1800 buildings. You see Natchez is the oldest European settlement on the river having French, Spanish, English and American influences. The town must have been a hive of activity in her hey day with the cotton trade, the river boats, plus the seedier side of town. Where we are staying, a guest house next to the Under-the-hill Saloon is one of the establishments from that time of gambling, thievery, press gangs and pirates. After our carriage ride we do our own tour to tick off the other highlights, then we spend the evening having dinner and then listening to music in the saloon. Great birthday for me.