Good day to you, lovely follower. Writing has been on my mind all week and I still haven’t gotten to it, but at least we’re here now. It’s a rainy day, the 2nd day with rain, the 3rd in gray skies. We got to this town yesterday and did laundry after a full 5 days of camping.
Last weekend we were in Lafayette. We had visited the backwards cemetery in Rayne, LA, during which time a facebook altercation started. Heads up, if you start a post with “I’m not trying to take anyone’s rights away, but….” you’re probably being an uneducated bigot trying to take peoples rights away. I don’t care if you’re following fear mongering propaganda, your willingness to eat it up like that makes it no less bad. It is a topic for another post, though my blood is still boiling at some of the things that were said, so much so that I’d be more than willing to backhand the OP if our paths cross again. Yes, love and light and smiles, but you wanna be nasty, don’t expect me to take that laying down. Not just nasty to me and my kids, but nasty to humanity, too.
Anyway! Lafayette has some very beautiful people! While I had an evening dance party, a lady named Kimberly said she’d come back to bring us more paint, but never returned (it’s fine, I hope she knows we love her and her energy anyway!) A guy named John really helped us out and another named Jason seemed to really want to, but I didn’t manage to reconnect with him. And then there were Mandy and Crystal, some super mommas who brought us donuts and smiles. Crystal did some screwing around on the bus, I much appreciate. They also sent us to the arcadiana nature trails to hang out, where we met some more awesome ladies! We spent another night in Lafayette but at a different Walmart before heading south to New Iberia.
There’s a lake Peignoir that had a man made drilling disaster that turned a small lake into a large salt water lake. You can tell because there’s a chimney sticking out of the lake from a then newly constructed 2 story house. It’s listed on Atlas Obscura and marked with a botanical garden near by. It does say that entering is easiest through the Rip Van Winkle Gardens, though I had no clue that it would be a mansion/bed and breakfast, with botanical gardens. I paid 8$ to get in after we’d taken the dogs for a walk down by the water. The mansion tours are shut down due to covid, but it’s a beautiful walk around that we could all enjoy. The property itself is very beautiful and a photographer captured us driving in and posted it on instagram stories. Yay!
We stayed a night at the New Iberia walmart and stopped at a playground before heading to a boatramp of a campsite. My friend from Maine, heading to Arizona to see his dad there, met up with us at the campspot and we had some beautiful time visiting. We only had one campfire, where the kids ate our last marshmallows. I made all the dinners of Potato soup, Pizza, Raviolis, Sandwiches, etc. The kids and dogs were stoked for the freedom to run around. No one was eaten by gators. I got to stay up late after the kids were in bed. Having some company makes a big difference. My friend, Oryan, has been traveling for a good 13 years. He’s an Iraque vet. It was really nice being able to conversate properly and listen to each others perspectives. There were a couple times where our conversation almost ruptured, but somehow we managed to talk through that anyway and that’s beautiful. He headed on west yesterday morning, leaving me his spare turkish press to take care of until our paths cross again, hopefully this spring. We did some arting on his storage box and my front door got a new layer of purple paint.
So yesterday we came to Bayou Vista. I’d been keeping off my phone and now I feel a bit overwhelmed again. I do most bestest face to face. Anyway, we’re kinda low on fuel, so my “Out of diesel” sign went into our window. 3 teenagers pulled up and the young guy gave me a dollar, then his girlfriends older brother came out and was like “Can you get to the pump?” He put 25$ in our tank saying it wasn’t much, it may just be a quarter tank in, but it’s the open hearted giving I care about. They were just cruising and decided to help. Such amazing humans. I fed the kids dinner and put them to bed. Right after turning on our evening story (Son of Neptune, Heros of Olympus series.) a truck with two Ladies, Mary and something with an “s”, pulled up and donated in the name of Jesus. This morning, as I was taking our trash out, a silver car pulled right in front of me, rolling down the window. This chica asked if it was my van and that she’d been following me since New Mexico! She said all of her friends have been posting our pictures and she took the chance of seeing us in person to donate. Every little bit helps us go further.
I’m really beyond grateful for all the beautiful humans crossing our path. I love that people feel called to us. We are beyond fortunate for being allowed to share my perspective and having people come share their perspective with me as well.
My friend in Germany, Saliha, is in the hospital currently, so if y’all would send her some healing vibes, I would really appreciate it.
On another note, if you wanna know how we got here check out these previous posts:
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Matilda the Bugus 