Cruisin' with the Cajuns

Our summer adventure started with a drive to Louisiana and a stay at Brenda and John’s house in Napoleonville before the Cajun Rally. We parked in their son Jeff’s driveway (conveniently next door to John and Brenda). They pulled out all the stops for our visit. We drove down to Cocodre on the bayou to pick up coolers of huge, fresh shrimp. They invited some of their friends over for dinner and we had mudslides and daiquiris and huge platters of shrimp.

The next day, we all headed out to the rally in Patterson. Brenda and I made it in time for the Red Hats Club luncheon at the casino. After lunch, we took our $10 gift certificate and played the “Wheel of Fortune” slots until we spent it all. The rally was great, as always. I made it to Mass on Saturday afternoon. John gave it a good try- we walked out of the coach and low and behold, there were a few of the non-church-going guys drinking a few beers. It didn't take much to convince John that brewskies were more attractive than an hour listening to the local priest.

All of the coaches left on Sunday and we were the only one left in this huge civic center/campground. Since we never get to explore the area when we're at the rallies, we decided to take a drive around the area. We found this great little bar called "Chilly Willy's". The bartenders' name was Hatchet (a woman!) and they had a great swamp pop song on the juke box. It was called "That Butt Thing"....."Don't like fishin, Don't like swimmin, I just like chasing those big butt women....".

We had a few days before we were due at Charlie’s place so we went to a campsite recommended by Brenda. It was brand new and perfect- concrete pads and no trees. We were invited to a cook-out on Memorial Day at Brenda and John’s and got some suggestions for places to see. We spent some time exploring the area between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. We drove through places like Mandeville and Madisonville, on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, to Abita Spring and Covington. We had lunch in Madisonville at Friends Restaurant.

We visited Ponchatula and then had dinner with Brenda and John and Audrey and Bobby. Audrey has her art exhibited at a local Baton Rouge French café, so we had an interesting evening with a real local artist.

Civil Rights and Sculpture Gardens in Alabama

We actually got on the road on Tuesday morning, May 4th. We had been in Nappanee for 16 days. We headed south and made it as far as Louisville and a Wal-Mart parking lot. The next day, we made it into Birmingham, Alabama.
We visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the 16th Street Baptist Church. The church was the site of the explosion that killed four little girls in 1963. Two of the three Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the bombing were not arrested and convicted until 24 years later, in 2000. The Civil Rights Institute was very well done. After a short film introducing Birmingham from its’ founding until the 1920’s, the Barriers Gallery showed the conditions of segregation and discrimination between 1920 and 1954. They had video, audio and photos of the Civil Rights movement as well as the reproduced, charred shell of a bus burned during the Freedom Rides. Across the street from the museum and church was Kelly Ingram Park. (Photo courtesy of Flickr). It was the site of another famous civil rights incident. The public safety commissioner, “Bull” Connor fired water hoses and let police dogs loose on peaceful Civil Rights marchers, many of them children.
After our visit to Reverend Billy’s yard sculpture, we had to make a pilgrimage to the home of Joe Minter, a self-taught artist. Joe, a 65 year old carpenter, had a revelation from God in 1989. He felt led to construct a monument to African-American history. The yard is an amazing display of everything from a map of Africa to tributes to the Civil Rights movement, biblical scenes, and protests to the war in Iraq. We had the chance to talk with Mrs. Joe and she showed us the book (funded by Jane Fonda) on “yard sculpture” across the US. Joe had a major section in the book. Then, we got a chance to meet the artist himself.
Our last stop was at the Barber Motorsports Museum. It was an absolutely amazing display of motorcycles from the earliest days of cycling to today. The museum was on 6 floors with a full floor devoted to restoration of motorcycles. John was in heaven, particularly looking at the old British bikes. (Check out their web site, Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum) On the way back to the campground, we spotted a Persian restaurant, AliBaba. We had a great dinner.

From Birmingham, we headed to Mongomery, home of Alabama’s state capitol. The capitol was the site of George Wallace’s famous speech, “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever”. After lunch at a great Thai restaurant (Lek’s Railroad Thai), we took a trolley ride through the city with a great black guide. He gave us an interesting perspective on the Wallace years. Although branded a segregationist, he told us that the black community supported Wallace and he did a lot of good for blacks. We also learned about their other famous son, Hank Williams. Although he died at the age of 29, he had written over 400 songs and had a remarkable career and life.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

Exhausted, we left on Sunday and headed north to Indiana. We only made it as far as Natchez, MS the first day and we just couldn’t drive any further. We stopped at our favorite campgrounds right on the Mississippi River and promptly took a nap. It made our 2 day trip into a 3 day trip, but after a weekend of Cajun fun, it was the only solution.

We arrived Tuesday afternoon in Nappanee, expecting a 3 day visit. It turned into a two week stop. The factory starts work at 6:00 am—so the service team arrives at 6:00 to fetch the coach. At that point, we were ‘homeless’ until they delivered the coach back to us between 3:30-5:00. So, with nothing else to do, we ate- hearty middle America food. The only place open at 6:00 AM was an Amish bakery/restaurant specializing in things like waffles, blueberry pancakes, fresh bread. Their claim to fame is the annual baking of an apple pie over 2 metres in diameter. After our carb free life in Florida, we started packing in the carbs every day (not to mention the wine every night). John said that he was going to self-combust from boredom.


The first few days back at the coach were fairly depressing. On Day 1, we had a huge rainstorm and once again had a ceiling leak. They had to remove the ceiling panels to get to the leak. So, we were faced with a huge wooden stick in the middle of the living room holding up the ceiling panels. The service team had put red stripes on it so that we wouldn’t walk into it accidentally. We added a “Welcome to Miller’s Barbershop” sign in it and got some laughs from the guys.

The bad news was that we had so many things to be fixed on a brand new coach. The good news was that the service team dedicated to the Essex was spectacular. Ken Miller (one of the many Miller’s at Newmar) was a “jack-Amish” and a godsend to us. He not only was technically competent, but listened and got things done.

In the process of trying to fix the squeaks and creaks in the front of the coach, Nevin (Ken’s brother and one of the Essex service team members) broke the front windshield. Rather than face a night in a hotel (the windshield needed time to cure), we took Gerry and Sandy up on their offer to stay with them and check out their new house. Gerry was busy with the Kruse Auction and took us out for the day to see the auction and check out the classic cars. John drove one of Gerry’s “classic” cars over to the auction- a old 60’s convertible, baby blue—and, according to John, one of the worst driving cars ever.

After a two day respite, we headed back to Nappanee and had our "technical walk-through" on Saturday (our anniversary- what a memorable day- learning all about the heating, plumbing and mechanical aspects of our motorhome- not very romantic.) Then after a full day of a walk-through, with mush for brains, we decided to go out for an anniversary dinner. There we were in northern Indiana- where the best restaurant in town is a bakery and their big claim to fame is Amish style cooking. We had heard from some of the other motorhome owners about a place called Essenhaus. In the pouring rain and freezing cold, we ventured out some 30 miles to Essenhaus. John went in first and when I walked up to the door of the restaurant, all I saw was his face pushed against the glass in a look of sheer horror. We walked in - to a 45 minute waiting line of people and horrible family style eats. We checked the menu- it was all meat, potatoes, gravy and lots of "sides" (potato salad, cole slaw, broccoli salad, mushy veggies). We did a hasty retreat and drove another 30 miles in the other direction to South Bend and to our favorite (and only) Indian restaurant in the area. Sadly, they had no wine, but they did have Taj Majal beer- so we had lamb vindaloo and Taj beers.

We woke up on Sunday morning and got ready to leave. I got the GPS programmed for Nashville and we headed off. We got to the edge of the parking lot and water poured down from the halogen light in the ceiling onto John's head. So, we unhooked the car, and pulled back into space #23 in the factory parking lot. All of our parking lot friends from last week had gone and a new group slowly moved in. At least the sun was shining (although it was bloody cold). We were too tired to be screaming mad....so we settled in with a NY Times and resigned ourselves our fate. It really is a beautiful motorhome when it's parked.....it's just when it's moving that we have problems.
Monday morning and Ken and his team were surprised to see our coach in the parking lot. They were horrified to find out about the 2nd leak. This time, they decided to do a pressure test to find the source of the leak. Turns out that it was another unsealed antenna on the roof. They fixed the second leak and sent us on our way. But first, we had to stop at the Onan dealership to check out the black smoke pouring from the generator.

A New Home!

We headed off to the Cruisin Cajun's big "Crawfish Rally" on April 7th. We headed out a few days early so we could explore the Gulf Coast (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi) and get to the Jerry Lee Lewis concert in Biloxi, Mississippi. On Day 2, after an exciting evening in the local Walmart parking lot, we were passing through Pensacola, Florida. John was fuming because the Eagle was still spewing oil all over the VW- after the third service appointment with Cummins engine folks. He casually said, "Isn't there a Newmar (RV) dealer in Pensacola? Why don't you call them and see what they have in stock?". So, we took a short detour to take a look at a motorhome called the "Essex" made by Newmar. It took about 10 seconds in this motorhome to know that we were not going to be leaving the lot anytime soon. We absolutely fell in love with the interior and liked the exterior (which was not an easy thing to do---we'd been looking and every time we found the perfect interior, we hated the exterior or found some other show stopper). A few hours later and we were negotiating our best deal. That night, we bought a large bottle of wine and sat on the floor getting fairly wasted- questioning our sanity at buying yet another motorhome.

Ahh, but- the Essex -- 45 feet long with 4 sliders, 4 plasma TV's (2 in the LR, one in the bedroom and one in the exterior storage compartment), 2 bathroom sinks, king size bed and even a dishwasher! The interior is very neutral with dark cherry woodwork. Truly a beautiful coach!

The "Minnie Winnie"

(We were amused to find a Minnie Winnie- identical to our first coach in their parking lot. So, we got to see our progression- from Minnie Winnie to the Eagle to our new home, the Essex!).

The "Eagle"

"Head to Head"

We spent the next day doing a brief (and inadequate walk-through) and moving all of our stuff to the new coach. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, but headed on the road for Biloxi. By the time we got there, we decided to blow off the Jerry lee Lewis concert and just opened a bottle of wine and spent the evening admiring our new home. That night, Mija went nuts chewing and scratching, so I took her into the living room so John could get some sleep. About 6:30 that morning (after a heavy rain), I woke to a drip, drip, drip. I opened my eyes to see a steady drip of water coming out from our halogen light in the ceiling. I put some tupperware under the drip and waited for John to wake up. He awoke to our new motorhome- with 2 showers! Needless to say, depression set in...... We headed back to the dealership in Pensacola to see what they could do. They claimed to have fixed the leak, but found that the air conditioners were not draining properly (something beyond their expertise to fix). Added to the leak, the A/C's and a few other minor problems that we'd discovered in our day on the road, it also had an inordinate amount of creaking. Well, we decided to schedule a factory visit immediately after the Cajun rally.

The Crawfish rally was wonderful. The "live crawfish race" was not to be missed. Imagine an entire group of adults circling around 6 live crawfish with numbers painted in nail polish on their backs- yelling for their crawfish to make it to the outer edge of the circle. Unfortunately, they opted not to do the chicken shit contest—where they have a live chicken walk over numbered squares. Everyone bets on one of the squares. The winning square is the one receiving the chicken dump.

And, then there's the crawfish!

A Family Get-together in Florida

A family get-together in Florida- Bob and Camille flew in from San Francisco and Steph from NYC for a long weekend in Florida. We’re not sure if they were impressed with our new “digs” – especially the idea of living in a very senior oriented gated community filled with golf carts and motorhomes. But they did get into the kitsch of Florida- spending the afternoon at our favorite biker bar – seeing the manatees, going to local alligator theme park and exploring the swamps in an air boat.

Cancel Cambodia- Hello Cajuns!

We were packed and ready for our trip to Laos and Cambodia. My Mom and E.D. were ready to take Mija and we had our ride to the Orlando airport scheduled. Then, we kept hearing these distressing BBC reports about bird flu in Cambodia. Knowing a bit about the Influenza of 1918, we had visions of being quarantined in SE Asia with no means of getting home. The reports kept getting more and more dire and we got cold feet. We cancelled our plans and were faced with the prospect of a winter at TGO.

Then came the call from Charlie and Gloria. They were heading to the Cruisin’ Cajun Mardi Gras rally and told us to get in our coach and come on over to Rayne, LA. We’d head some great stories of these rallies and while we were a bit skeptical of motorhome rallies, we thought we’d give it a shot. Days at TGO weren’t exactly thrill packed- the highlight of our day was a golf cart ride at happy hour with the dog. While Mija loved these nightly excursions, they did get a bit tedious. So, we packed up the motorhome and headed west to Louisiana – an 800 mile journey. Little did we know that we’d be making this journey every month for a while. We arrived in Rayne, two Yankees in a gumbo of Cajuns. Charlie met us at the entrance to the Rayne Civic Center and showed us to our parking spot. Within a few hours, we were in the swing of things- Cajun style. We found the check-in desk and got our Visitor Badges and welcome packets. We found our names on Charlie and Gloria’s table in the huge Civic Center auditorium- decorated for Mardi Gras. John quickly found the beer wagon- a fixture at these rallies. 24 hour access to beer on tap!

We were a bit overwhelmed – but Charlie and Gloria made sure that we were introduced to everyone and we were made to feel so welcome. Charlie even convinced John to participate in the Friday afternoon games!

Now getting John to put a shower cap on his head and shave cream on top was a sight to see! We made it through the day activities- but then came the evening – and the DANCE! For two Yankees with a combined 4 left feet, we were really intimidated. The dance started at 7PM and was going strong at 11PM on both Friday and Saturday nights. The dance floor was packed the entire time! It took a bit of coaxing to get us onto the floor, but we gave it our best shot. We’d never even danced together- much less with some of the best dancers you will ever see! They’d all been dancing since they were kids –learning from their parents.

On Saturday, the Cajuns put on their own Mardi Gras Parade- throwing beads and blaring Mardi Gras music from their floats. It was quite a sight!

That night, before the dance, the “show” was amazing—the “guys” came out for their own special “fashion” show. (When Charlie sat on John’s lap – this was the last picture that our camera ever took- it flashed and died!)

We met a wonderful couple that parked next to us- John and Brenda. They came over to introduce themselves- and brought us a King Cake (a traditional Mardi Gras cake). We were so taken with these absolutely wonderful people – and definitely wanted to become “Cruisin Cajuns”. So with our sponsors and paperwork in hand, we became official “First Timers” and made plans for the next 2 rallies so we could become official club members.

With the rally ending on Sunday morning, we still had another rally ahead of us. Charlie and Gloria had convinced us to attend the American Coach Mardi Gras Rally in Patterson, Louisiana. So, we headed from Rayne to Patterson with a large group of American Coach owners. We spent the afternoon at the local Patterson Mardi Gras Parade – caught our share of beads and enjoyed the local color. The American Coach rally was quite a change from the Cajuns. They did manage to get one of the extraordinary Cajun dancing couples to come to their rally and give some dance lessons. Every little bit helps!!

Birthday Margaritas

Our annual birthday visit to celebrate Mom's big day--those margaritas are amazing! What a great way to celebrate!