Category: Louisiana

We decided that if we’d done so many Mardi Gras activities this far, we couldn’t ignore Mardi Gras itself, so we set up an outing to Lafayette with Heuetta and Peggy. Heuetta picked us up at 7:20 a.m. and we headed off.

The first thing we noticed was how quiet Gueydan was – it was quieter than Sundays! That tickled us no end…then we realized that all the surrounding communities are shut down on Mardi Gras Day. Nearly every town or community has an event of some kind, or the locals are all going to a nearby event.
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(Note: Be sure to read the prior blog on the history of Mardi Gras if you aren’t familiar with the history of the Mardi Gras Run.)

Our day started innocently enough. We headed out on our morning ride about 7:30 am, as usual. However, as we looked west when we reached the intersection of Hwys 91 and 14, the sky looked really threatening, as if heavy rain was headed our way. Undecided, but really wanting a ride, we pulled into the Lougnon’s parking lot to think things over.
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We were incredibly honored to be invited to the Gueydan Mardi Gras Ball by Lynn and Hansford Hair. It’s hard to be here in southern Louisiana without hearing about Mardi Gras, and since we thought we had to leave by February 9, it looked as though we’d be missing Mardi Gras itself – on February 24. The chance to go to a real Mardi Gras Ball was too good to be true.

One obvious question that came up early was what we could possibly wear. Formal wear (beaded dresses, shawls, and high heels) were not on our packing list when we left Delray almost two years ago (though with the fun we’ve been having we may consider what we could bring that is light and packable). Enter our fairy godmothers in the form of Lynn and Heuetta.
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By most accounts, the history of Mardi Gras dates back to Roman times and the feast of Lupercalia. In an attempt to convert the pagans, the Catholic Church wove many of the customs of Lupercalia into its own activities. Mardi Gras became the time before Lent – forty days before Easter, when the church members feast and have fun before the abstinences and penances of Lent.

Known as Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras was big in France, and since southern Louisiana was settled by the French, it’s a particularly big festival here, dating locally to the late 1600s. The Mardi Gras colors are purple, gold and green, representing royalty, though costumes are varied and wildly colored.
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We’d quit riding in mid November, thinking we’d concentrate on our writing. We did concentrate on the writing, but then the bad weather snuck in, and it was way too hard to get going again on our rides. Seeing Marcus (our touring cyclist visitor) got us inspired, and we finally started riding again the third week of January.

We have loved the riding, as usual. The first time out we rode twenty-two miles, but we were pretty tired, and the weather was so cold and windy that we opted for our sixteen mile ride for the next few weeks. After some slow times (recovering from the Mardi Gras Ball and Mardi Gras Run) we’re now up to a steady twenty-two miles a day.
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Gueydan Museum

The Gueydan Museum is an elegant little museum right on Main St. The ongoing exhibits all concern Gueydan itself and the history of the local area, but they have various rotating exhibits every other month on a wide variety of subjects. When we arrived, Lea Hair had created an impressive and well-done exhibit on butterflies as part of achieving her gold award for her Girl Scout troop – that display ran from July through September.

Since then, we’ve seen the Lafayette Photographic Society “Focus on People” display – an exhibit of photographs that ran in October and November; a display of brightly colored oversized paintings of all the political candidates for the election of November 2008, with additional paintings of Elvis Presley, Louis Armstrong, Marilyn Monroe, Benjamin Franklin, painted by Adrian Fulton (December); and then the Noel au Musee – the traditional display of Christmas trees created and decorated by local businesses (December).
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New Years

Kenneth and Heuetta invited us over for fireworks and a bite to eat on New Years Eve. We started the fireworks early, by 7:30 or so, but it was so bitterly cold that we huddled under the carport in jackets, gloves and hats, and we still froze with that bitter east wind behind us. Heuetta eventually went inside and brought out thick warm blankets for us, but we were still cold. The temperatures were in the 30s – not “sitting around” weather.

Watching the fireworks was a new experience. Having grown up in California, where fireworks are anathema because of fire concerns, I’d never really seen fireworks “up close and personal”. I confess to being nervous around them because a childhood acquaintance had two of his fingers blown off, and that was all I needed to know about how “safe” they are.
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We spent an awesome Thanksgiving Day with Pastor Doug and his extended family. Since I come from a big family (five siblings, assorted spouses and numerous kids and grandkids), we felt right at home with the steady stream of little ones parading through the house, and snacks and food and drink everywhere. We had a wonderful time meeting his and Mona Beth’s family. Not only was the food delicious and plentiful, we got a great big to-go plate of leftovers. Mmmm…

We started in the day after Thanksgiving writing our first book about our adventures. I spent almost a week sorting my notes and typing them up, and then started the writing in earnest. In order to concentrate on the writing, we dropped out of life, spending six to seven days a week writing, eight to fifteen hours a day.
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Then came the night we got busted. Yep. Busted.

Chelsea, in her pink John Deere baseball hat, black Danskin tights, and baggy black Head hoodie, had just finished using the trash can as a tripod to catch a night shot of the Christmas lights on Main St.
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Besides the Christmas activities, we’ve had a bit of other interest in our lives. We managed to borrow movies from both Erika and from Mona Beth next door. It’s given us a chance to catch up on some movies we’ve never seen, and it’s provided a welcome break from the unrelenting time at the computers all day.

We’ve also had the fun of listening to a pair of horned owls that have been outside our house for several months. We’ve gotten to see them several times by sneaking quietly out the front door when we hear them call. We love going to sleep hearing them hooting softly outside our windows.
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