Southern Tier

Lafayette is one heck of a city. I really loved it there. It has about 100,000 people we were told. After we arrived and checked in to our hotel we drove around a little and then parked near downtown because we were told there was free music festival, which happens nearly every Friday night (well, I guess for like eight months out of the year or something). There were a lot of people out on this plaza, and there were all ethnicities, all ages, children in bathing suits getting splashed by a fountain that shot straight out of the ground intermittently. A sort of country/rock-ish ballad-type band was playing and it was sunny and hot and everyone there appeared to be having a good time of it. We wanted to know where to eat so we started up conversation with the people sitting next to us. The woman had lived in Lafayette for maybe 40 years and loved it. We took one of her recommendations and ate at a place called Don’s. I had Red Snapper. The waitress brought Eric cake with a candle in it. Afterwards we walked around and saw a big crowd of people at a converted gas station that is now a bar. A man was playing music and his four-year-old daughter was singing (kind of atonally) a song about rock-and-roll I think. It was cuter than you can imagine.


The bar that was formerly a gas station in Lafayette

The next day, I was going to go to the University of Louisiana library but it was closed for intersession. We went to the laundromat (I think down here they call them washaterias), looked at what the neighborhoods there are like, went to lunch at a neat place called Zea that had excellent hummus, went to a clothing store and a shoe store, Eric went to the cycle shop, and then we were pretty pooped. We ate salad in our hotel room and watched basketball and a conservative Native American scholar and columnist talking to a group of students at UMass Amhert, broadcast on CSPAN. That was interesting to watch. His talk was followed by a pretty hostile question-and-answer period.

Today I drove Eric back to Opelousas in the early morning so he could ride again. Afterwards I returned to Lafayette and got some exercise. Then I checked out and drove to Simmesport, which is where I am writing this from. Simmesport freaks me out. This hotel kind of freaks me out, but the woman who owns it with her partner was super nice. This room is in the cinder-block-and-flourescent-bulb style, made so famous by prison architects. In fact, we are near a very well-known prison, Angola.


Our room in the Sportsman's Motel. Take in the posh decor.

This afternoon we drove to Alexandria, LA, a fairly sizable town. I went to Target again as a mood elevator. It did elevate my mood, even thought the mint green pants I liked so much didn’t quite work out. I, again, bought nothing at Target. I think the planets might fall out of alignment if this happens again. We went to a casino for dinner. Yes we did. We went there because there was a buffet and being a picky eater (me) and an omnivorous but interestingly also somewhat picky eater (Eric) a buffet seemed to be the way to go. And the fact that it was in a casino made it more interesting. The fact that it is Memorial Day weekend meant long lines and a busy building. After filling ourselves, Eric played some poker and I decided to go wild and spend a dollar on the five-cent slot machines. Guess what though! I won $31.05. However, getting my money was something of a challenge because the machine totally broke midway through. It like shut down and showed an error code and I was like “WAIT! I never play this darn thing and I win and I get foiled!” But the attendant came over, another attendant came over, and then the tech, and some manager, and I got my receipt and cashed out and we walked out of the Paragon Casino into a torrential downpour, in which we drove back to Simmesport, which, again, is where I am right now.