Movin' on to Mississippi

We left the Isle of Iberia RV Resort on Tuesday morning, on our way toward Jackson, Mississippi where we hoped to meet up with some folks who had been church friends of Patti's from the D.C. area.

As we headed east on I-10, the highway went over long stretches of bayou. It is a little odd to be driving mile after mile on bridges over water.

We eventually crossed the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge.

It was hard to get a picture of the Mississippi River ...

... without the bridge structure in the middle of it!

Outside of Baton Rouge, we continued east on I-12 (I-10 went southeast to New Orleans). Soon we were heading north on I-55 and entered Mississippi.

We had arranged to stay at a Harvest Host at Highland Colony Baptist Church.

This church did such a great job with their welcome to Harvest Host guests: https://hcbc.net/harvesthosts

The big reason we wanted to stop near Jackson was to visit with Ken and Mary Francis, friends from when Patti (Pat) lived in Sterling, Virginia. While we lived in northern Virginia, we all went to Church of the Apostles and had home Bible study together (cell group).

They took us to Cock of the Walk for catfisth - yum!

We had fried dill pickles, jalapeno corn bread...

...catfish and fries, and, not pictured - turnip greens and cole slaw -- YUM!

Such a good time visiting and catching up with friends!

Cajun RV Festival 2024 - Day 4 - Crawfish dinner and evening entertainment

Monday was our last day of the Cajun RV Festival. After seeing the crawfish harvested in the morning, we dined on them in the evening!

The cooks had their boiling pots out in the parking lot with sacks and sacks of crawfish waiting to be boiled!

While we were waiting for the serving to begin, we quickly pulled up YouTube videos of "how to eat crawfish" and studied how dinner could be eaten.

I had opted for the alternate meal for this evening...

... so I had lasagna, mixed veggies, and a garden salad! Yum! And I didn't have to watch a YouTube video to know how to eat it!!!

Each person eating crawfish got 4 pounds of crawfish, a mayonnaise sauce, corn on the cob and potatoes boiled in the seasonings for the crawfish.

Our new friends, Terry and Daryl, being good sports about eating crawfish!

Carl holding up the first "victim" that he would attempt to eat!

Terry showing that she could get a good chunk of tail meat out!

As did Daryl!

And Carl did too!

That's a good piece of meat! Carl got pretty good at twisting the tails and getting the meat out!

Somehow I don't think Terry is totally comfortable with this!

For the evening entertainment, we had a zydeco band, Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band.

We figured that the young lady playing the "scratch board" was about 14 years old. She had so much energy and enthusiasm and was so good at keeping the beat -- with different syncopation on her right and left hands!

Here is a video snippet of them playing and singing: https://youtu.be/mXZ3ijZqQG0

A close up of Chubby Carrier and his accordion. This one reminded me of an old typewriter -- he didn't pull out the squeeze part very much, and it just looked like a really old Selectric typewriter!

Monday night ended our Cajun RV Festival. We have enjoyed learning about Cajun culture, music, and food!

Cajun RV Festival 2024 - Day 4 - Crawfish Farm

Day 4 started early as we were going to visit a crawfish farm, and the crawfish are harvested before 10am. We signed up in the group which was to leave the campground at 6am, which put us to the farm about 7:30am.

Driving along a levee in the fields -- the crawfish pond is on the left, and rice field on the left. The two "crops" are symbiotic - the crops are rotated from one field to the next - the cut rice provides a great habitat for the crawfish, and the mud of the crawfish pond provides a rich environment for the rice.

The farmer told us that when the pond is drained, it must be "smoothed" as the wheel of the crawfish harvesting boat will have carved a groove in the base of the pond. The high part of the mud must be moved while it is still wet because once it dries, it is like cement.

Crawfish harvesting boat coming - the operator was emptying those traps as he came across the pond.

Boat coming up onto the levee...

... crossing the levee to the next pond. The boat has wheels and tires underneath it, and the large wheel on the back that propels and steers it.

Three bags of crawfish from the first pond.

Fisherman backing the boat out after we had boarded.

Carl was standing near the middle of the boat, holding on to be sure that neither he nor his phone became crawfish bait!

Crawfish in the tray

Having picked up a trap...

... dumping the trap into the tray.

Re-baiting the trap with (smelly) fish and artificial bait

Encouraging the crawfish in the tray to go into the bags hanging down from the sides

Preparing to re-deploy the baited trap

Another trap being dumped - note the spike sticking up - when he redeploys the trap, that spike gets pressed down into the mud to keep the trap upright and in place. The pond is not very deep.

There are indentations on the sides of the traps with holes into the trap. The crawfish crawl backwards into the indentations, enter via the holes, and then cannot get out.

Re-deploying a baited trap as we return to the side of the pond where the next group of tourists (folks from our RV festival) was waiting to get on!

Boat up on the edge for us to get off

Transferring across the levee to the next pond to allow the next group to get on and the next pond to be harvested

It was fascinating to watch the process! I put together videos from the trip into a YouTube video which can be found here: https://youtu.be/KZCbTnq2uj8

Cajun RV Festival 2024 - day 3

On Sunday, the festival day started with beignets, coffee, and bloody Mary's on offer at the Clubhouse.

The beignets were cooked (deep fat fried) in the parking area outside.

There were no plans for things to do with the festival until evening, so we decided to go with new friends we have met here, Daryl and Terry, to visit a historic village nearby...

,,,Vermilionville

Information about the Vermilionville village development

Overview map of the area

One of the first buildings we visited had information about their building techniques: "Mud, Moss, and Cypress; Building with Bousillage".

An opened wall showing the interior building structure...

... back side of same wall.

"Beau Bassin House - The Beau Bassin House was originally built in the 1840s by Louis Arcerneaux, a Cajun rancher who lived between Carencro and Lafayette. The house is unique in the village because it blends Cajun/Creole and American architectural influences. The squared columns on the front porch are characteristic of American Greek Revival design, but the colombage and bousillage construction techniques are Cajun and Creole. Beu Bassin was named in memory of the village of Beaubassin, Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia, Canada), which was destroyed during the conflict between France and Britain in the 1750s."

Inside the house were "featured tools of the Cajun textile trade. On display is a two hundred-year old Cajun loom. In Canada, Acadian women wove wool and flax, and in Louisiana they learned to weave durable New World cotton, which grew in brown and white colors, and was sometimes dyed indigo. The textile tradition became a defining characteristic of Cajun heritage in Louisiana, in which weavers of hand-spun and hand-woven fabrics were known for making detailed “boutonnẻe” and “cordon” fabric designs on a simple two-harness loom."

School House

Inside the school house

Interpreter inside the school house

Example of 100 x writing "I will Not speak French" written on the board. From 1916-1965, there was effort made by the schools to eliminate French speaking in the communities in southern Louisiana.

Interpreter playing accordion

A picture of the interpreter's father's "school bus" and school house.

Martin accordion that the interpreter in the school house played.

Mouton House – the House of a Middle Class Acadian Family

"The Maison Mouton is a reconstruction of a standard sized dwelling with a detached kitchen, representing a home of a middle class family. Some Cajun families built up large land-holdings and became successful through ranching, trading, and farming. The founder of Vermilionville (present-day Lafayette) Jean Mouton built his wealth by acquiring land and developing a large cotton plantation that used slave labor. The site of the Vermilionville Historic Village was once part of the plantation owned by Jean’s son Alexandre, who served as governor from 1843-1846."

There were garden areas outside some of the buildings.

This one had some sugar cane growing.

Inside the Maison Mouton were examples of Acadian woodworking heritage.

Catholic church

Large plantation-style house

We decided to stop at the restaurant on the grounds which was serving a buffet-style meal...

... loaded plate from buffet with gumbo served by our waitress.

Our waitress and the other staff at the restaurant were eager to leave when the restaurant closed at 2pm (we were the last patrons) because one of their favorite bands was playing in the performance hall across the street (within the village). We decided to go over to listen...

... because we haven't heard *quite* enough accordion music yet! But, this was different, because the audience were local folks and they were dancing Cajun-style.

They have live music at the Performance Hall in Vermilionville every Sunday afternoon, at least April-June. The cost of admission to the village allows you access to the performance.

We enjoyed our visit to Vermilionville!

Back at the campground, the cooks had been preparing the meat for our meal all day, Cochon de Lait, or roast pork. They cooked "the heart of the ham" in the smoker, and then cooked a small pig in a special oven-type device. We got back too late to see it cooking...

... but it was displayed on the serving line. Don told us later that the pig did not get done enough so they did not serve us any of the meat from the pig, but we did get "heart of the ham" (I guess the best part of the ham roast meat).

It was a fun day - it was nice to spend it with Terry and Daryl!