Our Latest Adventure--Louisiana

Travelogue--Day 17

The Spring Monaco America Rally is now history. We wrapped it up last Thursday night.

We had arrived at the rally sight well over a week before the rally actually began to help get everything set up and to work with the parking committee in getting the coaches parked in the assigned spaces as they arrived. We set up a small tent at the entrance to the Rayne Civic Center grounds where we could meet each coach as they arrived. Since so many of the coaches were coming in early we wound up manning the tent all day each day. It was hot and humid and I picked up a real tan. This also limited the amount of time we had to do any sightseeing. We did get to go out for dinner with the group. On that first Friday night we made another trek to Thibodeaux's Restaurant in Duson. This time we had a group of 30 to partake of the great food. Only one of our members was brave enough to order a full order (five pounds) of crayfish. Roy made short work of eating them all. We had only given the restaurant about 30 minutes notice of our coming in with such a big group and they did not have time to bring in extra help. Being Friday night they were very busy. They only had one waitress on duty and she had to work the front plus serve us in the group room in the back. She did a bang up job getting all the filled and served in a reasonable amount of time.

We worked very hard on parking and by Sunday evening we had all but six of the coaches in and parked. That evening we had a potluck dinner which was well received by all. As is normally the case with potlucks there was plenty of good food. This gave us some time to sit around and visit with old friends and make some new ones. By Monday evening, prior to the opening kickoff gathering, the last six coaches were in and parked.

During our rallies we have breakfast and dinner catered Tuesday through Thursday. The food is always great and plentiful. We also have entertainment each night. On Tuesday night we had a Cajun Comedian who kept us in stitches. Thursday night we had a local group that did a fantastic job of playing 50's and 60's music.

The Wednesday night entertainment time was used to hold an auction. We had asked each couple to bring either something they had made or something that represented their individual home state. It was amazing how many great items were donated. We had a local auctioneer to help us with the sales and she really knew how to work the crowd. We wound up with around 75 items to auction off and raised over $3600.00 from this endeavor. This money was raised for a local charity. (In addition to the auction money the ladies that attended the Tuesday afternoon Tea had each donated a back pack to be provided to the local school children next school year. The charity group then will use the money we raised to fill each of the back packs with necessary school supplies.) With the funds we raised at the auction and the value the back packs we raised well over $5000.00 for the charity. The city's mayor indicated that it would take the charity group over two years to raise that much money. I was especially proud of the auction results since this had been Joanne's idea and she completely organized it and oversaw it from beginning to end.

Another activity at the rally was a frog jumping contest and race put on by the local Lions Club. Rayne bills itself as the Frog Capitol of the World. The Lions brought several big bull frogs and got some of our members involved in both a jumping contest and then a race. Some of the frogs were livelier than others and some needed some incentive to do the jumps.

During these rallies we have many activities. These usually include a "pet walk" where everyone can bring their pets to show off. Since our little Brandi does not do well around other animals we uaually don't take our dogs to this activity. Many of the folks will dress up their pets to represent the theme of the rally. Since we were in the Frog Capitol of the World the frog theme was evident here. Also a local ice cream merchant parked his trailer in the parking lot and was open for business each day with several flavors of Blue Bell ice cream. Each day at noon a line would form at the trailer.

On this past Friday most of the coaches started pulling out and heading to other sites. Several stayed around to do some tourist things. Four of us couples got together and headed over to the city of Breaux Bridge to take a swamp tour. This was a boat tour through the swamp that took about three hours. We had a great time with Cap'n Norbert LeBlanc giving us a good tour. We not only saw many different kinds of egrets and herons we also saw a few small gators.

Another interesting thing in Rayne is the local Catholic Cemetary. It is listed in Ripley's Believe It Or Not as the only cemetary in the nation that all the graves are laid out north and south. Tradition is for cemetaries to be laid out with the graves running east and west. As is typical in this part of Louisiana most all of the graves are built on top of the ground. This is due to the high water table in this part of the country.

Yesterday evening, Saturday, the few of us that were still at the rally park got together for an impromptu potluck and cookout. We had seven couples join in and sat around and visited until late in the evening.

Today all but one of the coaches pulled out and headed their own ways. Our wagon master is all that is left and they leave tomorrow. We have moved five miles east back to Duson. We'll stay here, at the Frog City RV Park, to do some sight seeing and exploring some of the small towns located south of here. After that we'll pack up and head back north and home.