Lafayette Home

I was tickled with the responses to Greg's alligator picture! When we went into the "trophy" room at my relatives home, Greg got on his hands and knees, put his hand into the gator's mouth, looked at me and said, "Get the camera ready." He made that expression perfectly on cue. I don't know how I kept the camera from shaking, I was laughing so hard. He should have gone into acting, yes? Or at the least, comedy! Maybe even drama!

My aunt and uncle have a "J" shaped home in Lafayette, Louisiana. We traveled up there to introduce the home to Greg and Roda. That sounds odd, because normally you don't say, "Look, you MUST see this house." It didn't take long for them to realize it was a treat.


The house is filled with handmade art, corals, shells, huge gemstone rocks, paintings, a hallway that has a pond and stepping stones to get to the other side, a pool that was converted into a pond, bathrooms with fossils as the décor.... there isn't a place in the house that you can turn and not go, "OH wow!" And the house is huge, yet only has 3 bedrooms.


The rest of the rooms are showcases of things they have done from scuba diving to taking pictures of animals in the wild. That brings back a memory... my aunt took a picture of two baby foxes in their natural habitat and when she made prints to share with relatives.... my brother and I used to fight over which room the fox picture would go in. We loved it so much. It hangs in Rob's house (for now..hmmmm)


The trophy room doesn't just have the gator, it houses ducks and snakes and sharks. Oh yes, they caught these things and paid visit to the taxidermist.


In one of the bedrooms, there is a real wildcat (stuffed). At one point, Roda gave our aunt a hug and my aunt said, "Aww, that's sweet." Greg (man with no buffer from brain to lips) chuckled, "You can't stuff Roda and keep her!"


But honestly, Greg was amazed with all that was there and I was thrilled. The only one thing that bothered me was the teeth. Let me explain... see, at one point there was abundance, over abundance of nutria in these parts. People were saying on the news that nutria needed to be killed and... umm... eaten, so as not to be wasteful. Yeah, I just couldn't think of nutria as being the "other" other white meat. Not in my diet.


Well, my aunt did eat nutria. She didn't like it at first but got used to it. The teeth in one of her artworks is... nutria's teeth. Having large rat teeth on a wall, it kind of bothers me... yet... draws me in, because wow, it's so... different. (If you look at the picture where my aunt is walking into a room and my Mom is looking to the left - on the left, those things sticking out of the wall - those are nutria's teeth.)


To view the pictures on my Picasa, click here, and scroll down. (or click here and go to the first picture of the visit.) They live at the end of the street and their property line in the backyard is defined by the curve in the river bend. The steps going down to the river made me nervous, but I love the view! Greg looked up Google Earth and found a picture of their home and then emailed it to me. Too cool. (in case you want to know what a nutria looks like, see picture below, see the teeth?)