So I’ve been meaning to write a post about our trip on the last weekend of April, but the last several weeks have been busily filled with old friends and renovations. I celebrated Cinco De Mayo at Z Tejas with Andrea, Anna, and Laura—we worked together at Keller Williams became close in a short time. I also went to Cover 3 for a XHHH (which refers to a happy hour with my girls I remain friends with even after all of us have since left Holt, Rinehart and Winston—hence the X). We even have more to share about our fun Memorial Day weekend in our next post. And lastly, we are knee deep in home renovations this spring. Our early May project was for Daniel to hang dry wall to finish out the garage and hang shelves and hooks for all of gardening and yard tools. The most recent is staining the bathroom cabinet to complete the half bath renovation we started earlier in the spring.
So the last Thursday in April I called my parents on the way home from the Hilton after the end of the close of Masterminds (one of my events I manage for KW) to see if they were on board with going to Louisiana for the weekend. When Daniel and I went to Jasper during Easter weekend we talked about crawfish season. Since we decided to split up our Easter weekend with both families it meant I wasn’t going to get to go to the crawfish boil at Memaw’s so we mentioned how it would be great to get back to Louisiana again. Both of my parents have family in Louisiana, and Dwight Breaux, my Mom’s cousin, owns a restaurant known for delicious crawfish, Cajun dishes and barbeque on Sundays. Somehow we ended up with a tentative plan four weeks ago, and the planner in me had been anxiously awaiting the confirmation that the trip was a go. I had talked to my mom several times and by Thursday night my parents were finally ready to commit—Whew! I only had one day to unpack from staying downtown for a week, wash clothes, book the hotel and research some museums in the Lafayette area. Much to my parents enjoyment I was a little wound up! Since my Mom and Dad can kind of roll with ideas and remain fairly spontaneous they think my planner tendencies are curious and funny!
Friday night when Daniel got home from work I had us packed and ready to leave for Jasper. We spent the night in Jasper and then drove to Vidor to pick up my mother’s sister and my Dad’s stepmother; our entire family lovingly refers to her as Memaw. We had great car rides all around with good stories about farming from my Memaw and my parents chiming in on how different life was 40 years ago. And soon, we arrived in Lafayette. We had seen a couple of Acadian Museums online and decided to go to St. Martinville. It is the 6th oldest city in Louisiana and is where many deported families first arrived from Acadia. Acadia is in Nova Scotia and is where many of the French decided to sail to so that they could start a better life for their families. The museum had a great narrative of people of color in Louisiana (slaves and Creoles) as well as the history and culture of the Acadians---I never knew that the term “Cajun” is taken from “Acadian”! On Saturday afternoon we went to Iris and JC’s house to visit, as that is where my mom’s uncle Dallas lives now. We had a good time and he is looking remarkably good for his 101 years of age!
Then we went to our hotel. Daniel picked out the hotel, and he made it painfully obvious why he should always leave the travel arrangements to me. The Lafayette Crown Plaza was undergoing some renovations, and they’re obviously still getting their stuff together. The woman at the counter tried to claim my dad’s credit card didn’t work, and when we got to our rooms they had not been cleaned and looked like a rock band had stayed the night there---they were absolutely trashed! The second set of rooms had no televisions, but the third set of rooms were just right!
Dwight’s restaurant is one of Lafayette’s hot spots for crawfish, and he treated us to a great meal. I really loved the charbroiled oysters, which were served topped with cheese and in cooked on the grill in their shells. The crawfish were great---Dwight’s even has holes in the middle of the tables with buckets underneath to easily discard your carcasses. We caught up on family stories and met with the whole family, including Maverick and Mary, and Suzie and Dwight’s daughters Brandi and Chelsea. After dinner Dwight showed us around his kitchen. He has some great innovations for transporting, sorting, and cooking his crawfish and other foods. He even has one woman whose only job is to shell all the smaller crawfish for etouffee and other dishes.
On Sunday, we went to early Mass and then headed out to the Acadian village. They had numerous houses that showed how people of the late 18th and early 19th century lived, as well as some of their belongings. We think that my great grandmother’s spinning wheel is among the donated items that are featured in the village, but unfortunately we couldn’t figure out which one it was.
We had lunch at Dwight’s---his Sunday barbeque is a buffet line that you can either take out or eat in the restaurant. I had some really good etouffee, and I also had some of Daniel’s ribs and sausage, which he thought were really tasty. He’s kind of BBQ connoisseur.
Our trip to Lafayette was a great mix of food, family, and history. We hope to have more trips like it very soon!
