Acadiana

The dreaded snow palm.

Warren Perrin and the Royal Proclamation of apology from the Queen.
Joseph dit Beausoleil Broussard who lead the first Acadians (Cajuns) to Louisiana.
The story of Longfellow's Evangeline.

Marvin Broussard, a fulltime Cajun who was our neighbor at Betty's.

Maggie is a solo fulltimer.

Anita and Gary Heke, from Manitoba, just started fulltiming.

Jo and Fred Wishnie whose fulltime adventures you can read about on their blog The Wander Wishnies.

Wayne and Margie Berridge are snowbirds from Ontario who stopped on their way to Texas.

One serving of nice size crawfish.

We are truly caught in that web.

One encounter we had here that we did not enjoy was SNOW!!! While we only got a dusting, just 25 miles away they had 3 -5 inches. Livingston, Texas where we had planned to go before deciding to spend more time with Betty had several inches. We will be searching for warmer weather very soon. During our last week at Betty's we visited the Acadian Museum in Erath to learn about the history of the Cajun people and how they settled in Louisiana. The museum tells the story of the French Acadians who settled in Nova Scotia in 1604 and were driven from there homeland by the British 1n 1755 during the French and Indian War. All the French were expelled during the war to a number of locations. This is known as "le Grand de'rangement" or dispersal of the Acadians. A group of over 190, lead by Joseph dit Beausoleil Broussard, who had resisted the British to the end, are the root of all Cajuns in Louisiana. Museum chairman and lawyer, Warren A. Perrin, a descendant of Beausoleil, was at the museum when we visited and offered a lot of personal insight into the Cajun culture and the efforts to preserve it. (He is normally there on Fridays when he opens his law office for his local clients in the same building.) In 1990 Warren petitioned the British government to apologize for the dispersal and in 2003 Queen Elizabeth II finally offered an expression of regret in a Royal Proclamation that is displayed in the museum. The story of these Cajun people from Acadia in 1604 to the apology is told in Warren's book, Acadian Redemption: From Beausoliel Broussard to the Queen's Royal Proclamation. The museum and Warren are very active in the preservation and promotion of the Cajun culture. We have really enjoyed our time here meeting these people who are so proud of their culture. You taste it in the food, hear it in the music and language and see it with the many French names you encounter everywhere in the Acadian Triangle.

We met many new people while at Betty's and ate many great meals. On our last night we were glad to see that Cajun Claws, the local restaurant that opens only when good crawfish are available, was open. Several people from the campground went to dinner and we all stuffed ourselves with wonderfully tasty "mudbugs." We also dined on wonderful RAW oysters at Dupuy's which has been in business since 1869 and had great local seafood at the Riverfront. Betty's and Cajun Louisiana is definitely a place to which we will return. We ARE caught in Betty's web and loving it.