Below is a shot of our license plate after driving highway 82 through Southern Louisiana.  Justly so, Louisiana is one of the states that claims the mosquito as the unofficial state bird.

While in Lafayette, we toured a living history site called Vermillionville, which was the original Cajun city that Lafayette grew around.  The woman below is spinning cotton yarn.  We also observed a Cajun cooking demonstration, where we learned how to make Jambalaya.

Jody and the girls got some old-style homeschooling in at the one room schoolhouse.  The Cajuns were forbidden to speak French at school; consequently, most Cajuns today do not speak french unless they are quite old.

Here is a family activity apparently enjoyed by some of the more well-to-do Cajuns -- a 3 seat outhouse. It is so very efficient.

This old gent was barely understandable due to his heavy Cajun accent and missing teeth, but he sure was interesting.  He demonstrated some of the Crawfish trapping and fishing gear used in the 1700s, including how Pirogues were made -- the small canoe-like flat bottom boats that were universally used for transportation in the 18th and early 19th centuries in this area.

While in the area, we also saw a rather dramatic film depicting the hardships endured by the Cajun peoples, who call them selves Acadians.  Acadia was a region near present-day Nova Scotia that was settled by the Cajun's ancestors in the early 1700s.  The British gained political control of the region and exiled the entire French-speaking Acadian population.  Eventually the King of Spain gave them land grants in present-day Louisiana -- but the exile killed off more than half of them.

We went searching for a very late lunch (4 or 5 PM, I think), and after driving around a ton, finally found what we thought was a good sport for Cajun food.  We were disappointed, though.  The food was mediocre, the prices exorbitant, and the cuisine was mostly Italian.  Live and learn.  Since we did not end up eating until 5 or later, we called this dinner.