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Charlie is a big fan of Cajun Zydeco music, so we traveled through the Zydeco Cajun Prairie to see the hometowns of Geno Delafose, Steve Riley, Clifton Chenier, Queen Ida and Boozoo Chavis, among others in Louisiana northwest of Lafayette. The area is mostly rice farms and ranches.

http://www.zydecocajunbyway.com/index1.html

We ate at a Cajun restaurant for dinner, Randol’s, in Lafayette, where Charlie danced with Giselle, a woman with whom he danced when we went to Southern California Cajun Zydeco dances in Pasadena many years ago. She moved from L.A. to Lafayette several years ago. Both were surprised to see each other in Lafayette!

 

On our way to Lafayette, LA, we stopped in Breaux Bridge for lunch and a walk around downtown. We ate at Buck and Johnny’s, where there are Zydeco dances every Saturday morning. When we went into a local souvenir store, the woman who owned the store was really friendly, and spoke with that unique Cajun accent. We knew we were in Cajun Country, for sure!

We drove from the Atlanta area southwest through Auburn and Montgomery, Alabama, landing in Gulfport, MS to spend the night.

We toured Auburn University:

We exited the freeway in Montgomery to view a few historic sites:

We bade farewell to our Fayetteville, GA home on November 29 and began our journey west back to California. Here are a few parting shots of our home in Fayetteville:

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with Charlie’s family in Fairburn, GA, with about 35 people there. What a fun group! We were so thankful to be able to spend the day with them.

The next day, Charlie’s cousin, Bill, invited us to watch his tree-climbing skills. He is part of a recreational tree-climbing group and explained and demonstrated all the skills needed to climb a tree safely. He urged us to try it — to no avail. We were too chicken!

Christmas lights appeared in our neighborhood the weekend after Thanksgiving, making it even more beautiful.

We spent the day before Thanksgiving walking along a nature trail that we discovered in Peachtree City. Lovely urban park!

We spent an afternoon walk in historic downtown Fayetteville, GA.

Thanks to Facebook, the Georgia relatives were able to announce the date of a family reunion that was held at the family church on November 11. Many were able to attend, and it was wonderful catching up with everyone. Charlie and I appreciated all the hard work that went in to arranging this!

November was a perfect month in which to visit the Atlanta area. The weather was mostly in the low to mid 60s, with the exception of about a week at the beginning of the month when it reached the 80s (with humidity, ick). Our neighborhood was a beautiful place to walk.

Continuing our walks like we did at home helped us not to feel like tourists all the time. Our neighborhood became more familiar. We did laundry, shopped for groceries, got our flu shots, renewed our prescriptions and stayed at home to cook quite a bit during our month here.  It can be unsettling to be on the go all the time and not to do “normal” daily things. Plus, after the family reunion, we caught colds and were forced to lie low for awhile to get better, and also to not spread our germs with our family.

We spent the day on November 2 visiting the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, including a tour of his old neighborhood, his church and his childhood home. The NPS site here includes the surrounding neighborhood, including buildings that have been maintained in the period during which MLK lived here. The homes are rented to people to live in with the stipulation that they cannot add or detract from the period architecture of the structures.