Frog City RV Park, Duson, Louisiana
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. ~ Proverbs 17:22
I don’t know if it’s considered another Arctic Blast today, but temperatures here in the Frog City RV Park dropped 30 degrees, and we had sustained wind speeds of 22 mph with gusts even higher, and add to that, periods of rain.
But we didn’t care. We had our internet and phones!
And that led me to discovering some other interesting news from the area. The name, ‘Frog City’ – which we found very curious, including the fact that there are frogs all over the office area – actually comes from the history of a nearby community called Rayne. Below is the story as written by Amy Snyder on exploratorium.edu.
What is it about frogs that captivates our imagination? In a small town in the middle of Louisiana’s Cajun prairie, a stone’s throw from New Orleans, is a town called Rayne, where frogs have gained iconographic stature. Frogs and Rayne have a relatively long history that dates back to the 1800s when a gourmet chef named Donat Pucheu started selling juicy, delectable bullfrogs to New Orleans restaurants. Word of Rayne’s frog delicacies spread like wildfire, and soon attracted the Weill Brothers from France, who started a lucrative business exporting frogs to restaurants. For years, world-renowned restaurants like Sardi’s in New York boasted of offering frog legs from Rayne, Louisiana.
The success of the Weill Brothers business helped put Rayne on the amp as the Frog Capital of the World. In 1946, Rayne’s froggy reputation was furthered when the International Rice Festival invited Rayne to host the first Frog Derby, an event where the prettiest women in town dressed frogs up in jockey uniforms and raced them. This even continues today; if you happen to be in the area on Labor Day weekend, you can still see it as part of Rayne’s annual Frog Festival.
This evening, I accepted an invitation to go crafting! This campground does all sorts of activities – movie nights, game nights, a white elephant exchange on the 24th, and several craft activities.
Tonight’s was supposed to be a ribbon tree ornament. I haven’t crafted for quite some time, plus you get to socialize, and eat snacks, and everything is provided by the campground. Translation? Free and fun!
Blaine stayed home, but he could’ve come with me. There were three other men there and their wives, and two kids. We had a great time!
And just look at what I made!
That’s because I’m not very creative.
I can follow directions and make stuff, but when it comes to creativity? Forget it.
