Details & More

Today we relocated to our final campground and this is a convenient time to share a few facts about motor home caravans.

We all belong to a club of Monaco motor home owners.  Two couples who belong to the club volunteer to plan and lead these caravans.  This is a difficult job because, not only do they have to coordinate routes, campgrounds and meals, they also plan all activities and establish a budget for what we do.

We travel from campground to campground in the motor coaches in waves, four to five coaches at a time.  This limits the impact we have on local traffic.  When we are touring, we car pool.  Each day we change car pool partners so that we can all get better acquainted.

While most of us are strangers when the caravan starts, we become good friends through sharing a really good time together.

Our travel this morning was delayed by a severe thunderstorm.  Safety is primary when we are traveling, so we waited out the lightning, thunder, and rain in our warm, dry coaches.  Once the weather cleared, we drove about an hour down the road to Breaux Bridge, LA.

This is home to Martin Accordion Company.

 

Rita arranged this lagniappe for our group and it was a unique treat.  Since 1985, the Martin family has made Cajun accordions.  We met Junior, the grandfather, Patsy, the daughter and a school principal, and Joel, grandson and musician.

They explained the differences between a piano accordion, made in Italy and using a special cardboard, a six-sided concertina, and the Melodian which is Cajun and the state instrument of LA.  The reeds and bellows are made in Italy, the rest is made by the Martin company in Scott, LA.  Their accordion is diatonic, using a push/pull method of producing tones.  They use both curly and birdseye maple.

The bellows are hand painted with their copyrighted logo, a crawfish.

Most are made to order and start at about $2600.  They can be had with gold keys for much more.  These shelves are filled with accordions in various stages of completion.

Cajun music has altered many times since the Acadians came to Canada.  Hank Williams, a non-Cajun, was influential in adding country flavor to the sound.  The Martin trio, accordion, steel guitar, and string guitar played the Cajun version of his hits Your Cheatin’ Heart and Hey Good Lookin’.

They explained that Cajun music is created by white Acadians who speak French.  Their percussion instrument is a triangle.  Cajun music is not written down; instead, it varies and tells a tale each time it is played.  Zydeco is Black Creole music that is soulful and sung in phrases. The words are half French and half English.  They use a scrub board for percussion.

The trio went on to play more for us including Amazing Grace, sung in French, and a love song written by Joel when he was first performing.  Joel and his grandfather have a special way of looking at each other to detect changes Joel makes as he plays.

Jerry took special interest in the wood shop and got some tips from one of the accordion makers (not how to make one though).

Our next tour was gastronomic.  Before imbibing on a seafood feast, we toured Crawfish Town, once a barn now a restaurant. 

Rusty, the head chef, took us back to check out the various stations where our dinner would be prepared.  We saw the crawfish crawl up a conveyor belt to be sized, packed in 35 pound bags, poured into steam-boiled seasoned water, covered with seasonings or breadcrumbs, and plattered for consumption. 

Our group consumed pounds of crawfish, shrimp, oysters and a few frogs legs.  We waddled out with smiles on our faces.