Category: Louisiana

The town Christmas parade has undergone some big changes in the last few years. For many years it was held in the daytime, and it’s the same style as other local parades – it consists of motorized floats with the occupants of the floats throwing out candy, plastic cups and bead. Those watching the parade dash out for the goodies as they are thrown from the floats.

Then about two years ago the decision was made to have the parade at night. What the organizers hadn’t taken into account was that neither the spectators nor the float occupants could see things being thrown in the dark. There isn’t sufficient light from streetlights, and there are no lights on the floats either.
(more…)

Kenneth and Heuetta were a real lifeline throughout the long months of November and December. They live less than a mile from us, and Heuetta works right across the street, so it’s easy for them to stop by and see how we are. And they sure did a great job at it!

November

Starting in November, they’d stop by with care packages of food, or they’d invite us to drop over for a beer and food on weekend evenings. One wonderful Saturday in late November, Kenneth had gone crab fishing, and we got invited over to a crab boil. I have never seen so many crabs in my life.
(more…)

Halloween here is a low-key affair, centered around the children. City Hall hosts a costume contest, and our buddy Heuetta (who works at city Hall) sat on the steps with bags of candy for the kids. The event started about five in the evening, and by seven it was all over (and it was dark, with the ever-present mosquitoes).

Heuetta brought along a great collection of talking, singing and dancing Halloween characters, battery operated, and they certainly attracted the kids’ attention. If you look at our photo album, you’ll see that nearly all the eyes of the children are cast downward – checking out the funny and scary figures on the ground.
(more…)

Thinking that we were leaving almost immediately, after the Thibs fly-in and the Omelette Festival, we’d said a huge number of goodbyes. In fact, we’d had so many goodbyes, we began getting sensitive about still being here some weeks later. One Sunday at church Dick Sirmon (who always razzes us anyway) approached us and said “I left for two weeks and I thought sure y’all would be gone by now!” Into the silence Chelsea said, “Fooled you!” It fooled us as well, since we thought for sure we’d be gone.
(more…)

We have a deep affection for the members of the Methodist Church in Gueydan. They’ve been absolutely wonderful. They’ve made us feel so welcome and they’ve made us feel like a part of the congregation. We have loved seeing everyone each week and having a minute to chat, and we have looked forward the blue jeans and cake Sundays, where all the anniversaries and birthdays for the month are acknowledged. We’ll miss all the singing, we’ll miss Pastor Doug’s beautiful voice, and we’ll miss the sense of family. On our last Sunday at church, during the time of thanksgivings and concerns, I stood to give public thanks for all the joy the church and its members have given us, and Pastor Doug gave us a special prayer. We will keep each of the members in our hearts during our travels.

Just when it seems our adventures in Gueydan are over, something else pops up. This time it was a totally unexpected trip to a crawfish pond, and a chance to get out in the pond and see the traps picked up. Jaimie Snoddy lives right outside Gueydan, only about a mile from us. We met Jaimie at Pat and Debbie’s “fly-in” and we were really impressed. We found out that she does some work for Pat Hair, but she also runs her own crawfish traps on her own acreage, she raises sheep for eating, she makes her own wine, and she makes her own jerky. As if that’s not enough, she’s a really talented amateur photographer.
(more…)

Gueydan, with its expansive fields of rice, is our first extended experience of being in a heavily agricultural area, other than our month in Abbeville, where sugar cane is king. Unlike sugar cane, which grows tall and prevents a view over the field, rice fields, even at the height of their growth cycle, still allow an unimpeded view of the horizon. The land around here stretches away into the distance over the rice fields, creating sweeping vistas broken up only by farms houses, rice dryers, and the intermittent small housing community.
(more…)

Clothing

We had some important purchases while we’ve been here in Gueydan, not many, but really great ones. We’ve needed shirts really badly for our days on the bike, and the quality of the Columbia shirts we used so successfully went seriously downhill, so much so that we returned a new one with a note expressing our surprise and disappointment. I’ve had an Ex Officio shirt for 3 years now that I’ve loved. I’ve been wearing it for months for cycling, and I’ve been really been happy with it. We looked at the prices on the Ex Officio website, and realized we aren’t in the budget category yet to get them. Quite discouraged, I finally thought of checking eBay, and what a score we made!
(more…)

Chelsea’s new computer

One of our biggest frustrations on the trip has been having only one laptop. Since writing is our way of communicating, and will be our major source of income, having one laptop really slows us down. It takes an average of 1 to 1-1/2 hours per page to write a decent blog; and then there are the hundreds of photos that we need to download from the camera, cull, organize and caption, then upload to Picasa. I am writing at least one book about our adventure, and Chelsea has started a book on her brain injury, so that adds time on the computers. And if all that weren’t enough, we have research that we do online, bills to pay, emails to write and respond to, newsletters, and we have to communicate with hosts and find places to stay. The need for another laptop became increasingly important the farther into the trip we got.
(more…)

Getting there and getting set up

The Thibs annual fly-in, at long last…we can’t believe we are here for the fly-in, especially after seeing so many photos of the prior years and hearing all the stories.

Beth and James Thibodeaux are really awesome. Beth has her own painting business, specializing in unique faux painting, and she works as a flight attendant for a small private airline, doing regular runs and charter flights. James has just begun flying for the same airline, and he still manages the various business enterprises for a local doctor. They are both extremely busy, and yet they manage to keep the airfield maintained and to put on these fly-ins twice a year. In spite of all this, they demonstrate a really clear affection for each other that is wonderful to see.
(more…)