Louisiana Hospitality

April 11, 2018

Last evening we had the pleasure of being the guests of the Merryville, Louisiana Historical Society and they rolled out the red carpet for us. We were allowed to set up our tents on their museum grounds with easy access to their showers and other facilities. They are part of the Warm Showers network and they make these services available to all bicyclists who pass through their community. However, they went all out for our group with a full dinner, history lecture and a hot breakfast this morning.

Their museum has a wide collection of artifacts from the pioneer past right up to fairly modern times. Sitting next to an old stereoscope from the 19th century is a movie projector the was recently used in the local school to show 16mm movies. The proud military history of this community is also prominently displayed.

Dinner was a collection of local dishes such as cornbread, boudin, corn pudding, meatballs and too many desserts to calorie count. All were prepared by museum members. While we ate, Eddie gave us a history overview of the community starting with how it came to be called Merryville. It seems that the next parish over was a dry parish while their community allowed the sale of intoxicating spirits. Folks would routinely make the trip across the parish line when they wanted to make merry. Eventually local leaders decided to capitalize on this boost to the economy and changed the name of the town to cash in on the trend.

Eddie is married to Rene who is also an essential leader of the historical society. There’s is a mixed marriage: He is a fan of Nebraska State football while she supports LSU. Somehow they make it work. Both were generous hosts and entertaining speakers.

This morning they repeated their generosity of the previous by feeding us all the breakfast that we were willing to stuff inside ourselves. It was far and away the best display of local hospitality that we have have encountered on our cross country journey. It was with reluctance that we mounted our bikes and said so long, hoping to return again some day.