Day 26 - St. Francisville to Lafayette, Louisiana

You just never know what life is going to throw at you. Sometimes you can be just so sure that you've been thrown a lemon, an then, presto, someone hands you an ice cold lemonade. Such was my take on last night's RV park. You may remember that we chose it because of its proximity to our last port of call for the day, the Rosedown Plantation. Also, the docent in the local museum recommended it. Naturally, I was expecting something just downright excellent. But when we turned into the drive which ran closely alongside a rather dilapidated manufactured home that had seen better days, our radar began sending us warning signals. Then, as we cleared the elderly mobile and headed further into the Park we were accosted by several even more dilapidated buildings, once of which announced by way of some crude, hand scrawled letters that it was the "Washateria." The Washateria, a squat cinder block building with a tin roof, look exactly like the very last place you'd ever hope to emerge with clean laundry.

"Oh, oh," I said to Concetta. "This does not look good." And so it didn't. Seeing no office at which to stop the RV and pay my dues, I rolled all the way to the back of the park and pulled into an open space. Jumping out, I walked over to where I had seen a group of campers arranged around a table full of beers to ask just how one got assigned a space in this rather homely little camp.

As I related last night, the beer drinkers were more than happy to let me know that no manager was on site and I needed to call to find out if I could stay. "Okay," I said, and took the number offered by one.

When I got the manager on the phone I was told where I could park the truck and just how I could hook up. Believe me, at that point had it been earlier in the day I probably would have just driven on and sought out another place to rest for the night.

But in the end, though our fellow campers decided that, it being Saturday night, that they would just do a bit of drinking and partying into the late hours, I slept like a baby in the cool Louisiana dark and woke up to find that I still had all the tires on my rig and nothing seemed amiss at all. In fact, as we had our breakfast and sat looking out at the surrounding woods, a half dozen cardinals frolicked below our window just hoping that I'd grab the camera, I guess, and take their photo. Concetta had to tell me they were cardinals since I don't think I'd ever laid eyes on one. She said that they were common in Ohio. We did have one small problem as we stowed our gear and made ready to leave: the manager had never appeared to collect her rent for the space. I decided to be proactive and went in search of the chap who had given me the phone number the night before.

This is the point where I regretted thinking anything negative about the little RV park with it's tiny compliment of spaces and confusion of amenities. When I had found the chap, he and I had the most marvelous conversation for the next quarter hour that left me feeling good for the remainder of the day. He was a youngster from Pennsylvania who installed Ethanol plants for a living. Moving from place to place as the job required, he'd been in Texas and Tennessee and a half dozen other places that I've now forgotten. All the while he's been living in a travel trailer and just hanging out at little inexpensive RV parks just like Shelby J's where we had crossed paths. I found him perfectly charming and as easy to talk to as someone in my own family. After we'd parted I thought to myself, this is what traveling is about. The people and their stories. Who cares what the park looks like.

And then the manager arrived. Guess what? She turned out to be just a little charmer as well. She and I hit it off immediately as we both are landlords. Before I knew it, I had spent another quarter hour talking with Yvonne about anything and everything to do with the business. As we parted I gave her my card and told her to contact me if she ever needed any advice on the subject and we went our separate ways fast friends. In the end I learned, possibly for the umpteenth time, that you should never, ever judge a book by it's cover.

Having said that, you probably should skip the Washateria at Shelby J's RV park. It's a little on the rustic side.

So, on the road once more, we set off down route 61, the Natchez Trace Parkway. Our destination was to be Lafayette, Louisiana, and I understood from my dandy map-reading ability that it was only about two hours away. After a quick stop for a tank of gas, we plugged in the book on tape and settled in for a nice couple of hours of driving. That lasted about as long as it's taking me to tell you about it.

There we were, cruise control engaged, settled back in our seats, our book on tape droning on about murder and mayhem, when suddenly I saw one of those irresistible roadside signs that promises worlds of great history if you'll just turn HERE! Naturally, I was in the process of cranking the wheel over so I could keep from overrunning the entrance driveway, when Concetta said, "Hey, this place is closed on Sundays." Stopping in mid turn, half in and half out of the driveway, I began to turn back onto the highway.

That's when we saw two women standing outside the entrance kiosk waving for us to come ahead. Waving quite frantically they were. Well, what the heck, I went ahead and drove up to their little shack to see what the commotion was about. "Your sign says you're closed today," I said as I came abreast of the two women and had rolled down my window. "Yes," they said, "but there's a Civil War reenactment going on here today and you're welcome to come on in.

I looked at Concetta and I'm sure I had a, "Is this heaven?" look on my face. "Let's go in," Concetta said, and that's precisely what we did -- for about four and half hours.

If you've never been to a Civil War reenactment you're really missing some HUGE fun. Everything there is as close to authentic as they can make it. There are bivouacs of canvas tents all over the place, each one with period camp equipment. There are people everywhere in period costumes doing things like operating a spinning wheel, forging iron articles on a forge, or taking wet plate photographs using the 1860s process. We attended lectures on what it was like to be in the cavalry and how people fought duels.

And then there's the real action. They had canons going off, troops charging each other, and simulated hand-to-hand combat taking place. Jeeze! It was wonderful. When I wasn't photographing all this action, I was off talking to soldiers in their camps and finding out what it's like to be a Civil War soldier. It didn't matter that thousands of feet had turned the pasture into mud, I wore my hiking books and displayed the mud with pride.

Though it was tough to tear ourselves away, we did manage to make Lafayette tonight. We found a truly wonderful park beside a lake and have already made friends with the camper next door. Tomorrow we're slated to tour Avery Island which includes, we understand, some great gardens and the world famous Tabasco sauce company, Mcllhenny. Concetta wanted to see the company because when she was working on the Virginia City archeological dig of the Boston Saloon, she was on hand to see one of their bottles excavated. The bottle turned out to be perhaps the oldest Mcllhenny bottle ever found. Sounds like terrific good fun.

Stay tuned.