Moving on to Louisiana

Max and I were eager to get to Louisiana, where we knew we would find good cajun music and cajun food.  Since we would be there almost 2 weeks before the Crawfish Festival in Breaux Bridge, we decided to stay at a small, privately owned RV park in Meaux, Tall Pines RV Park. 

In a field behind where I was parked there was a small crawfish pond.  I guess this guy wanted to see the world and found himself on my patio.

We had a terrible storm and there was just a little bit of water where I was parked.

It even knocked down the electric pole out front and everyone was without power for 2 days.  (Except for Max and I myself since we had generators)

Fancy got to run free on their farm and she loved chasing the squirrels, and the squirrels loved teasing her.  This was in April 2015, and sadly, I lost Fancy to kidney failure in June.  This is how I will always remember her because she loved to chase her critters.  She truly had a terrier heart.

Every Wednesday is the Mercredi Show in Carencro, LA.  This night featured Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners

The next night found us at Randol's in Lafayette.

And the night after that was in Opelousas at the Casino dancing to Richard LeBouef.

And we were with good friends to enjoy the show.

And Saturday was Cajun Woodstock in Church Pointe, LA.  In addition to music, they have an auction to raise money for St. Jude Hospital. 

Jamie Bergeron and the Kicking Cajuns started the day.

The guy with the long beard was one of the competitors in the cookoff, but he also plays the triangle and joined Jamie on stage for a few songs.

They also had a Cajun Gravy Cook-off.  Their were eighteen entries and I wanted to try them all, but after only 8 samples, I was stuffed.  They gave full bowls, not samples.

Sunday early afternoon found us at Vermillionville listening to this zydeco band.  Sorry, but I don't remember their name.

It was either eat or dance, or sometimes both.  Sunday late afternoon was a gathering of friends for a crawfish bisque party.

Leftover crawfish from a previous crawfish boil was used to make this pot of crawfish bisque.  The secret?  Real butter and real cream.

Herman and Lynn Duhon, owners of the RV park where we were staying, own this parrot.  Here, the parrot and Fancy were getting to know each other.

The next Wednesday found us back in Carencro for another Mercredi Show.  Tonight it was Ryan Foret and the Foret Tradition.

 

We wanted to have our own crawfish boil before we headed to Breaux Bridge, so on decided to have our boil on Thursday before leaving on Friday.  The guys bought 40 pounds of crawfish.  Here they are cleaning them in preparation for the boil.

Onions, potatoes and corn to go with the crawfish.  I think it's ready.

Patty arrived just in time to help herself to a plate.  Boy did we chow down.  And with seven of us, we still had two pounds of peeled crawfish leftover.  That's enough for me to freeze and fix my own crawfish bisque at a later date.

On Thursday evening was music in the park in Abbeville.  Here we are waiting for the music to start.

What?!  Here in cajun country and this is a oldies band.  We stayed for a while and did some dancing, but they called themselves a garage band and they really were.  They really should go back to just playing in their garage.  We had a running contest of who could guess the song and artist who originally recorded the song.  Sometimes it took us halfway through the song to even figure out what song it was.

This was a great two weeks, but as you can see, it was very busy.  And our time in Louisiana isn't over.  Tomorrow we move over to Hardy Parc in Breaux Bridge for the Crawfish Festival.  Three days of cajun/zydeco music and lots of cajun cooking and always Roy's Lemonade.

Port Aransas and Padre National Seashore

I am seriously behind in my blogging again.  Too much fun, I guess. But I'll try to start catching up and maybe not get so far behind.

After leaving Bandera, I headed south towards Corpus Christi area.  Besides Max and myself, there were 5 others headed that way, too.  For only $12 you get an annual pass for your vehicle to park (and camp) on the beach in Port Aransas and Corpus Christi.  We chose a beach in Port Aransas.  

Here I am looking out my front window.

And I just took my lawn chair down to the waters edge.  How relaxing!

Max found he like Patti's hammock.

Patti had the ladies out doing line dancing every morning.

Someone decided to decorate the posts.

Fancy always loved the beach.  Usually I could let her run and she would chase the birds and sometimes even end up in the water.

It was the beach and Max was determined to go swimming in the gulf, even if the water was frigid.

We did have a bad rain and I ended up in a lake.

Luckily, I was able to pull out without getting stuck and moved to higher ground down the beach.  They were expecting more rain and I didn't want my lake to get worse.  High and dry in our new location.

I'm not even in the true south, and here I am having my first of many fried bologna sandwiches.

Although Max and I left before it officially started, here were some people getting ready for the annual Sand Festival.  They have people from all over the world come here to build their elaborate sand sculptures. To see this years winners, click here

A fellow traveler, who attended the Bandera Dance Rally, lives in Port Aransas, and had us all over for dinner one afternoon.

He had a beautiful place and this was his view from his deck.

Another day, a group of us headed south to Padre Island National Seashore.

I have now visited over 140 National Park sites and many more that aren't counted with official cancellations.  I have filled up 2 passport books, and now keep track of my visits to National sites using an iphone app called 'passport'.

This was after the rain store and we found lots of beached Portuguese man 'o war lying around.

On the back side of the dunes (away from the beaches) were lots of swampy grounds and salt water marshes.

In another area of the park were a number of people sailboarding.

I always love my stay at the beaches, but it's time to head down the road towards Louisiana and cajun country.

Bandera Singles Dance Rally 2015

The Singles Dance Rally, sponsored by the SI's RV club, is held in Bandera, TX, every April.  It is 10 days of fun and dancing.  This is my 7th dance rally and it was just as fun this year as my first year.  Here are just a few examples of just how much fun seniors can have. 

Lyn drove all the way from Tucson with a bird nest in the basket of her bike. 

I wonder what the mother bird thought when she returned to where her nest had been and it was gone.

A number of people arrive several days early.  This year a group went out to Toucan Jim's to celebrate Blackbeard's Birthday.  Many of the group dressed as pirates.

I didn't dress as a pirate, so I got put in the stocks as a scallywag.

Below are the owners of Toucan Jim's.  Most of the bars, music halls and saloons cater to country music and cowboy ways, so this was a nice change of pace to hear Jimmy Buffet style music all evening.

Watching this rooster wander around reminded me of Key West.

The first day of the rally was on Easter.  We started with an Easter Hat Parade before we had a scrumptious Easter dinner

We always have several theme dances (who says costume parties are only for kids?), and this year we had Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves for one of our themes.  Maryjane's daughter graciously loaned us her Gypsies wagon.

Everyone tries to outdo everyone else when designing the costumes.

But it is all in good fun.

 

Our other major theme night was a pajama party.

What a motley group.

We even had a few jam sessions in the afternoon after announcements.  This was an impromptu addition, but it was so well received, it is now on the agenda for next year as well.

 

Whenever the Ricky Adams Band plays the 'Irritations' come out to help with the song "Ride, Sally, Ride".

We always have one dress up night.  Notice, Max is in his Tuxedo again.  

The Longhorn Saloon has its name for a reason, a real longhorn.  I even got to ride it this year.

And the Easter Bunny arrived on horseback.

And the Easter Bunny tried to crash the party by coming through the window.

We even had someone with a bunny tail and bunny ears dancing.

But, there is more than just dancing to do around here.  The wildflowers, especially the bluebonnets, were in full bloom.  This is up on Bluebonnet Loop north of Fredericksburg, TX.

What I really enjoyed was when it was more than just the bluebonnets.  The extra color of the red, yellow, white and red flowers were exquisite.

One weekend was the reenactment of Mayham on the Medina.  They had gunfights.

And they were camped just like in the old days on the frontier.  Bandera really was a cowboy town.  It was the beginning of one of the cattle drives up north and whenever the cowboys were in town, it did get a little rowdy.

You can check out some of the previous years dance rallies by reading my previous blogs:

Dance Rally 2014

Dance Rally 2013

More 2013 Dance Rally

Dance Rally 2012

I have many more blogs, just check out the previous years archive on the side and look for the dance rally blog found in April.