We had a
lovely buffet breakfast and tried out grits. Grits are kind of a porridge
made from rough ground corn. Didn’t really taste of much. We left Nottoway in
pouring rain and headed for Lafayette.
At Lafayette
we visited an Acadian village. Acadians were French speaking people from Canada,
who migrated to Louisiana. The name Cajun is a kind of shortened version of
Acadian.
“Vermilionville
is a living history museum and folk-life park that promotes and propagates the
cultural resources of the Acadian, Native American, and Creole people – from
the time period 1765 to 1890”. There are 7 houses and in each was a
crafts-person demonstrating crafts of the time. We saw cotton spinning,
quilting, wood turning, and a fiddle player who played Creole music for us
while telling us about the history and background of his people.
Some fun
facts. The houses are built with mud mixed with the local Spanish moss. Spanish
moss, when dried out, was used to stuff cushions, mattresses and even the seats
of Model T Fords. When a household had a marriageable girl (between 13 and 19, by
which time you were on the shelf) the father would climb the chimney and paint
a white band around it to signal to the men that there was an eligible match
available. When all the girls had husbands, the chimney was painted all white
to say “move along, nothing to see here!
We headed north
and suddenly the swamps turned into conifer forests and rolling hills. We found
a Parks Service campground in a National Forest with a sign at the gate saying
“beware of gators, deer and wild hogs”…
Click the link below to see where I am located.
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