Day 30: Welcome to Cajun Land!

This morning Joel and I woke up after a night which turned out to be pretty cold.  And although the mosquitoes had been bad all night, we did need our sleeping bags in the end!  So that was good!  I was done being baked alive!  Joel got off a lot worse than I did, he was bitten tons, and I was only bitten a few times.  Luckily that was the worst of the night so we packed up the car and headed down the road towards New Orleans.

We headed to a campsite outside of New Orleans, but stopped a couple times along the way.  Our first stop was for some food as well as internet to figure out what else we could do during the day.  Our second and major stop for the day was Lafayette.  This is a really nice town with several important stops.  We stopped at the Acadian Cultural Center   Here we learned all about the expulsion of the Acadians from Canada and how they moved down to Louisiana and become known as the Cajuns (the word itself comes from the original Acadian).  We also learned about the Bayou and the marshes and rivers in the area.  From this center we decided to picnicked by the river and dine on some Reese's Pieces and Peeps.  Delicious!  We then read for a bit and I fell asleep in the sun.  It was so warm and nice.  And the grass was so spungy and soft!

From the Acadian Cultural Center and my little nap we headed to dinner.  And this was so amazing.  I had this amazing pulled pork bun with a garlic sausage on top and dripped in amazing BBQ sauce   Apparently this restaurant is a staple in the area, and we even got a discount for being students!  It was really delicious.  The only complaint I had was there was not more of it!  We sat outside on the patio where we could enjoy the sun and the food.  We were the only people there at the time and it was nice and quiet.  What a peaceful and delicious way to have a meal!

From there we headed out to our campsite.  It was a middle of nowhere place.  It was really dirt road and lots of people fishing! So seriously no where!  We were trying to find the campground that we had found online with no luck (almost getting stuck in the middle of nowhere mud pile). Finally we stumbled into a fisherman who was packing up for the day and he kindly lead us to a somewhat camping area.  Not sure if we were allowed to sleep there but he told us it was safe and no problem and the man working in the area, named Guy, would be totally OK with it.  After checking with us that we knew how to get back to the Highway he headed off and we were left alone.  It was nice and quiet, some mosquitoes but not too many so that was good!  All in all a nice place to camp.  There were camping tables so that made us feel better.  And we soon fell asleep excited for the next day which is New Orleans!

Rammy and Us Driving Down the Back Roads!