Post 68: Vermilionville Living History Museum

Thursday morning we left Bayou Segnette State Park and headed to Vermilionville Living History Museum, which had been our home for 7 or 8 days and headed west. One of our habits that we are trying to break is driving for hours and hours a day. It’s hard to believe, but unlike vacations, since we are retired we don’t really have a schedule we need to keep.

This trip was a relatively short 3 hour trip, from Bayou Segnette State Park to Vermilionville Historic Village in Lafayette, Louisiana. We found this lovely location using Harvest Hosts. The drive was uneventful (good!), when we arrived we were greeted by two sweet ladies that were dressed similiar to Acadians dressed in the 1800’s.

Vermilionville Living History Museum

They were very familiar with Harvest Hosts and showed us were to park. They introduced us to the grounds keeper and he gave us further directions. His parting words were: “Go back to the pond and pick out the best spot to park for yourselves”.

We went back and it was beautiful. Ducks, Turtles and yes, even Alligators!

We parked, setup and had a quick lunch. We then walked over to the Vermilionville Village and decided to take the self guided tour. For those of you that have been to Upper Canada Village in Ontario, it is a similiar experience. Beautifuly restored homes and out-buildings with charactors dressed in the era attire and they provided great insight to what was happening back in the day.

The four folks we meet that grabed our attention the most, the Carpenter who carved ducks and made small wooden boxes with secret compartments.

Then we met a Creole musican who gave us an extensive history lesson in Creole and Cajun music and then played some examples on his violin! Then we wandered over to a home that specialized in making wool and quilts. Two lovely ladies stepped us through the process of making wool and then making quilts. Amazing, so much time goes into each trade. All the items the staff make are sold at the Gift Shop. The staff we meet were passionate about their work, this was not a job for them. They were doing this becaused they loved the traditions and their families practiced them in the past.

We capped the night off with a relaxing dinner in the RV, watching the wildlife.