Life's Good!

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Wow, we sure had a busy week here at the camp ground.

Last weekend was the weekend of the 17th Annual Memorial Day Swamp Pop Music Festival!

The campground was booked solid and since our spot was reserved as well (about a year in advance) we had to move to a different site.

(We'd actually already moved last week because we didn't know if we would have the truck available.)

Preparations on the grounds and at the office were in full swing, everything was looking good, and than ... it started to rain!

... and rain ... and rain ... and ....

The flooded H-section in the back

Pfff, well, we all know the story by now .... of course the dang river started to rise ....

And so, we all flooded again ...

This time we crested at 16.4' on Thursday morning, after which it started to recede quite fast, as usual.

But with people already planning to come in on Thursday night, it meant they had to cancel all the reservations for the H-section, which by that time was still under water.

For some reason we actually were fine, we seemed to have picked the one spot in C that was situated on a little bit of a 'rise', so we just, but only JUST, stayed dry!

Any-who, as anticipated, people started to 'flood' (pun intended) in on Thursday afternoon and by Friday evening pretty much every dry spot was filled.

Lots of people meet friends and family here every year, it's a hugely popular event, and throughout the weekend people gather at different campsites for private parties and reunions, potlucks and BBQ's.

The weather was absolutely beautiful, and at 7.30 the evening entertainment started up ...

Now, I'm not a big fan of loud music and feared we would be blasted away, being fairly close to the music pavilion, but because we were enclosed by so many RV's the sound was thankfully somewhat muted.

Also, this type of folk/country/Cajun music is really not the loudest and actually something we rather enjoy.

Even better, and something I'm rather puzzled by (but not complaining!), is the fact that at all the events we've had here, the music stops at either 10 or 10.30 pm.

Certainly not what I'm used to from parties I've been to in the past!

On Saturday morning vendors set up shop in front of the pavilion ..

And a huge crowd of day-visitors filled up the parking areas ...

People filled up the benches under the tents at the pavilion or brought their own seats, or simply set up in front of their sites:

The day got really hot and humid (92 and 88), but if you're real swamp people, you don't mind ... or you just sit in your chair, drink your beer and don't move ....

Bands attending were the Aaron Foret Band, Ross Grisham, Ryan Foret & Foret Tradition, Travis Thibodaux Band, La Rouge, Natural Satisfaction, and Tet Dur.
Two of them I'd heard before, the rest were new to me, and although I'm not too much into music, I enjoyed listening to a few of them for a little while.
I really only can stand music for a short time, and was happy to be able to escape into the RV where the AC was doing a nice job keeping me cool!

Most people braved it outside though. Like I said, it amazes me how they can stand it. Let alone dance!

You have to be born here I think, ...

... or cheat and bring a big fan!

To say we're not much into music, or any of these busy and noisy events, is somewhat of an understatement I guess.

James wasn't even there for the day (we're such party-poopers), he was working some more on the truck at Ronnie's (his boss') place.

It's still not running very well and we'll keep on monitoring it for a little longer, but he's now basically doing maintenance, changing oils and filters, shocks and what-not, just normal 'stuff' and small repairs.

The fact that Merlin's deaf has it's advantages.
He was totally unfazed by all the noise around him, and believe me, it was NOISY! He spent the weekend mostly conked out because of the heat ...