Immersion Part III, Good-bye, Hello

The week started and ended with days of departure.  On Monday, seven RVs plus Tim and Diane all left and on Sunday, the last two Canadian couples pulled out.  Betty's is a place where the RVers do become friends so we usually gather to say see ya down the road and remind those who are sad about leaving that you can't come back if you don't leave.

We did not get a picture of everyone who was leaving but even the rain could not keep us from gathering for the big send off. 

On the way to the airport we continued Tim and Di's full immersion Cajun experience with a stop at Acadian Village for a walk through history lesson about the Cajun expulsion and their settlement in Louisiana.  The village has a dozen buildings that are set around a small lake and gives a real feel of the swampy conditions the early settlers endured.  

Left is the 1860 Castille House that was originally in Breaux Bridge and right is the 1820 Thibodeaux House.  That house is constructed of the wood eternal, cypress, that is resistant to rot and insects.

This is an old blacksmith's shop and a couple of old wagons.  There is also an extensive display of period farm equipment.

Another look at the Castille House and the chapel that replicates the 1850's churches of Acadiana.  The chapel had beams held in place by wooden pegs and a cypress ceiling.  Some of the pews are original. 

There are no gators in the lake, but there are many fish and turtles who were looking for and easy meal.

The Lablanc House was built from 1821 to 1856 and was the home of Dudley J. Lablanc, a local politician and writer who is most famous for his invention of Hadacol, a vitamin tonic, ie. a snake oil, that contained 12% alcohol.  It was guaranteed to cure all ailments.   

We had never been to Acadian Village so it was great sharing it with Tim and Diane as part of their Cajun experience.  It was a great visit and we enjoyed having friends stay with us.  Many RVers say their rigs are okay for entertaining six and feeding four, but only sleeping two.  We have found that we can sleep four without any great inconvenience and we love sharing our travel experiences with friends.  The only downside of this visit I'm sad to have to report, is that the guys came up on the short end of the euchre tournament.  Oh well, it was still a lot of fun. 

People leave Betty's and in no time at all we are making new friends.  Here are Loretta and Rey, Debbie and Mark, and Dale and Kirk, new people and new stories.  Rey is the new head of the Escapees Elks BOF, Kirk is a national park ranger and Deb and Mark are from Israel, so there were many new tales at happy hour.  Deb and Mark have just started RVing in the US after living on a boat in the Mediterranean for ten years. We met them in line at Cafe des Amis and it was great seeing them at Betty's  

Later in the week Wendy, Ray, Claudia and Eddie arrived.  We had met them all at Betty's on earlier visits.  Eddie is originally from Abbeville and graduated from high school with Betty.  Ray and Wendy have a very good blog that is on our blog list.  Here is a link to their blog.  

You really never know what will happen at Betty's happy hour.  Looks like Marie and Cal wanted to have a pajama party.  To paraphrase a line from Woodstock, "Isn't it great that a bunch of "old " people can get together and have a good time and nothing but a good time."

On Saturday we had another great day of music at the Museum Cafe in Erath.  It is really neat to see how hard they work to keep the Cajun culture alive through music.

Here are the people from Betty's at the jam.  Marie, Wendy, Ray, Merlene, Dan, Cal, Nanc and our good friend from Abbeville, Ollie.

The Sunday morning line up to wish Cal, Marie, Rick and Brenda farewell and safe travels.  We are already making plans to see them down the road.

A SPECIAL NOTE

We read Nick Russell's blog everyday and were honored to be his featured fulltimers couple this week.  Here is a link to that article.  He did a great job of capturing our lifestyle and we thank him.  We also have a link to his blog under my blog list.