Doin' Time in Louisiana

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I'm feeling a bit theatrical; things are getting to be of dramatic proportions. Shakespearian you might say. So many things have gone cross-ways, that we're at the point where we just laugh when the next happening crops up. I'll get to the most recent event in due time, but first we must catch you up to where we are.
We're still in Hammond, Louisiana. Off and on we've been here nearly three weeks. The van just made the final 15 miles to where we have been staying for the last couple weeks, nineteen days after its scheduled arrival. We are actually quite pleased it has finally made it here. The good news is that the van still drives; we actually drove it for the first time yesterday for close to an hour (in a couple of episodes). The cooling system is still a problem, although less of one than before. After driving too hot across Texas, being worked on by the mechanic in Houston, driving to Louisiana, and then blowing up on the side of the freeway, the van was deposited at Lance's father's old electric motor shop, where it has been living while we await parts to fix it. Of course, the initial hose sent to fix the exploded one was the wrong one. So after spending time in Mobile, Alabama, visiting Lance's mother while waiting for the hose, we arrived back in Hammond only to wait again for the correct hose to arrive. It finally did, and about five days ago Lance installed it in the cooling system. In between, however, (after Lance had various conversations with VW experts and mechanics in three states) we decided that a special radiator flush was important to eliminate other possible problems. Unfortunately, the earliest appointment available was not until the following Tuesday, and so despite the new hose, we waited another five days. Happily, we were able to drive the van to its radiator appointment, and considering all it's been through, it did very well. Now, post radiator flush, we can say that we've done or had done, everything that can be thought of, short of replacing the radiator (a more expensive undertaking). Whether it is cooling the engine enough to risk driving across Texas again was another question, and one Lance hoped to solve by a series of test drives. After multiple loops around Hammond on the freeway today, however, and another consultation with VW mechanic number three in Seattle, it was mutually determined that the radiator is not functioning properly, does not hold up under pressure and distance, and must be replaced. Luckily, one could be ordered on the spot, for less money than we had feared, and should be delivered to us tomorrow. Lance is very excited to begin his first radiator replacement, and I am anxious to commence my job as the lovely assistant. If all things go smoothly (and we are still talking to each other), we are cautiously optimistic about departing Louisiana within a few days. Meanwhile, as we were riding in the van today with the temperature holding steady, we cautiously discussed the few other nagging problems we had been having with the van before this episode, wondering if we dare try to do something about them. It was an inconclusive discussion.
The other acts in our comedy of errors have been of a more bureaucratic nature. First, Lance left his debit card at a gas station about ten days ago. Then, a few days later, I discovered that my card for the same account had been cancelled by the bank. The upside is that this makes it hard to spend the money in your account. Lance was able to order a new card, but unfortunately not without changing his official address to Alabama (they wouldn't accept a temporary address). Somehow the card that was supposed to replace my cancelled one was sent to me, returned to the bank from the post office, and cancelled, all without my knowledge. Fortunately, they could miraculously express mail a new one to me. Now if we could only get pin numbers, we could use them. And, as if this were not enough frantic phone-calling, there are the car tabs. With expiring April tabs on the van, we have been working like crazy (from afar, with the help of our motherly business agent) to get all the money and forms sent in to the correct office in Seattle. Each day for the past two weeks we have awaited the email telling us our tabs have arrived in Portland, and are ready for forwarding to Louisiana. Clearly it is now May, however, and the tabs are nowhere to be found. I finally called the DMV office to complain, and the best they could do was send replacements via snail mail (another 4 days?). So unless we decide to risk driving with expired tabs, we are grounded in Louisiana until they arrive. (We did decide that our expired tabs are not too noticeable here, as the colors don't correlate with the local tabs, so test drives aren't too risky.)
For the most part, all of the woes with the van and bureaucratic hassles do not explain how we have actually been spending our time. First, we have been staying with one of Lance's closest friends from his early college days in Louisiana. Noland and his family have opened their home to us wheel-less vagabonds and made us extremely welcome, offering us free run of their kitchen, shower, washing machine, and home movie collection, not to mention good company. Despite our immobility, we have definitely enjoyed many hours of quality reading, writing, travel-blog creation (more on this later), and our newest fascination, crossword puzzles (despite an incorrect, pre-conceived notion that crosswords were only for retired people). Noland has also entertained us with some true Louisiana culture. Last Sunday we were invited to a southern crawfish boil. The nearly day-long event began with set up in the yard and on the porch. Several huge metal pots were gathered for boiling and washing, coolers for storing the 120 pounds of crawfish, and a large table for pouring the cooked food across. After washing and purging the crawfish several times, they were set to boil on a propane burner in three batches. To the crawfish, Noland added pounds of spices, salt, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, corn, and garlic. When a batch was done cooking, they flung it across a newspaper-covered table, creating a huge mound of bright red-orange crawfish with vegetables nestled between, and people clustered around to eat, standing. As the neophyte, I approached the table cautiously and was promptly shown how to eat. Cracking, de-shelling, and slurping up the critters was a trick, but well worth it. It was all spicy, messy finger food, including the vegetables, even soft whole cloves of garlic. I thought the first batch was rather impressive, but these native southerners kept going for three batches, leaving an immense pile of cracked shells in their wake. I enjoyed spicy finger-tips well into the afternoon.
Our only out of town adventure since Mobile was a music festival called "Festival International" in Lafayette, LA, about two hours from here. Lafayette is a very French town, where we were escorted by another friend of Lance's (we feel a bit like 14 year-olds who have yet to get their driver's licenses), door to door service. It was a great event, reminiscent of "Folklife" in Seattle. There were bands on many stages, no entrance fees, and the whole affair was outdoors. Of course the cajun/zydeco/creole music was exceptional and plentiful, each group with its own flavor. We also enjoyed Canadian afro-celtic-rock and Swedish modern-infused folk music. We happily took the opportunity to cut a rug, dancing our own version of contra-swing-zydeco at the edge of the crowd. Until the storm came. Rain here is much more imposing than rain at home. It's not drizzle or showers; it's rain, hard rain. At first we thought the storm would just pass, and huddled under an awning with friendly musicians from Minnesota. But, a little later as we splashed through puddles on our way to an African band, a bigger surge suddenly hit, stranding us under the plastic roof of a beer tent. We kept thinking we would leave, and then it would pour harder. Forty-five minutes later we were still under the tent when the street water flooded over our feet, an electric fire began in the booth next-door, and the beer tubs began to float away. We ran for shelter in a parking garage and chanced upon three musicians preparing for their performance. It wasn't long before a small crowd had formed and a real old-time band sawed away. We were damp and the lightning flashed, but the music was good. It turned out to be a very mutually pleasing situation: the musicians had an audience during the time slot they were supposed to perform in, and we had front row seats to proper entertainment while waiting for the rain to pass. But it did not pass, and eventually it was clear that the festival could not go on that evening: the venues were flooded, the lightning was dangerous for electronics, and the audiences were gone or so damp that they headed for cozier cover. Eventually we too donned our raincoats, put up our umbrella, and waded out to find our friends for the return trip to Hammond—a drive back through the heart of the storm. It was a bit of a melancholy way to end the day, although the music still remained with us, a freshly bought recording following us into the car.
One important experience we had quite some days ago now, was a drive along the Gulf Coast on the way back from Mobile. Only a short distance off the freeway between Hammond and Mobile lies the Mississippi Gulf Coast highway, where the effects of Hurricane Katrina were disastrous. We drove through Biloxi and Gulf Port, seeing first hand the devastation. Amazingly enough, it was the buildings that were the most damaged, the ancient oak trees still left standing in many places. Some houses were completely gone, indicated only by their concrete foundations sitting alone among trees. Other places, parking lots with large business signs lead only to piles of debris; but many structures were still standing, heavily damaged on the lower floors, and somewhat intact above. Most impressive was a huge church with outer supports still standing, the major walls missing, and only a choir loft left, hanging in the air above its non-existent sanctuary. Some homes were similar, empty downstairs quarters leading to a hanging staircase and imagined rooms above. The beaches were filled with debris, and the trunks of fallen trees could be seen protruding from lapping waves. Clearly, some people are living in the area again, many of whom have brought in RV trailers to place on their land as homes. But, overall, there was a ghostly quality to the beachfront land, so many signs of lives lived, things destroyed or missing, and the people gone, yet so clearly felt. We were very glad to be able to see this, to be able to better understand the scope of what occurred, and yet left subdued, all too aware of human fragility and consequences.
As I finish this letter, I have a greater sense of depth about what we have been experiencing during our time in the South. It has not been a time of easily identified oohs and ahhs for the latest geographic phenomenon, but there have been many smaller important moments, and things to learn. I do wish it was easier to see the famed Louisiana swamp here, but there aren't many trails; I got a glimpse on a half-mile round-trip path, but then it ended—Lance says hiking is not too big here, and there are too many snakes anyway (which I can already attest to personally). We wish you happy, meaningful adventures.

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Photos

Festival International
A Maritime Province band: Suroit

The Gulf Coast
Look closely, the first floor of this house is gone. The people are living on the second floor which is supported by poles.