South Louisiana Weekends

Mardi Gras is over... what a fun and interesting time we had.  The last two weekends of our stay were just as interesting.  The day before Fat Tuesday we stopped at the Abbeville tourist center.. but it was closed for the holiday , but a nice lady (Lynn)working next door at the Chamber of Commerce stuck her head out the door and invited us in, so we visited with her about an hour. More travelers stopped so we all had a fun,learning time with her. She told us about Richard's Sale Barn... Richard's  a very old stockyard/sale barn that the owners were trying to  restore and they were putting on different  shows there once a month. This month they were having a comedian  (LA State representative, Richard Perry) and his brother  Pick'in and Grin'in, so we thought it sounded interesting. We went to that Sat. and drove right by because the barn was hidden by trees and brush. When we drove in the drive we thought ... this can't be the place.. it looked like a falling down old barn, but just then the owner came out dressed in his cowboy clothes and invited us in. Soon there were more people (100 or so) that joined us inside the old barn that  is decorated with many old saddles (at least 50 or more) and other old farm tools. The barn is on the  LA historical register and is a really interesting place.   Sat on the risers that were used for the livestock sales on old  cushions from old furniture and feed sacks and  whatever people brought in. We must have been the only non-locals there and when the comedian started and got into a local cajun joke he would say he would explain later to the people from Michigan.  A FUN NIGHT. The last Sat. we were going to another music filled day but, Jan wasn't feeling well,  So Grizzly and I went by ourselves to Eunice to the Savoy Music Center  to a jam session at Marc Savoy's accordion factory. savoy music Marc builds accordions and has a family band that plays and records. They all... like many musicians in the area play many instruments.... accordion, fiddle, piano, guitar and more. About a dozen people showed up to play. It was a great  morning with  great music and really great people. Grizz and I then walked around Eunice and found a couple of neat museums... one was a nutcracker museum... A lady had collected over 300 nutcracker statues from all over the world. She had donated her collection  and someone else donated an old jewelry store, so they made  it a museum..  Neat to see.  We were planning on leaving for Texas on Monday(today) but they predicted rain and they were right and so we are staying at Betty's another night.