For a long weekend, we took a trip to New Orleans for a mini-Mardi Gras celebration. By mini-Mardi Gras I mean that we went to local parades and didn’t venture into downtown New Orleans. I think the local parades have more heart to them because the represent the town itself.
I’ve been to some of the downtown parades… granted it was many years ago. But like any large parade, there are always large crowds and way too many people for me. It really was much more fun being at the smaller parades.
The drive down to New Orleans (from here on in known as NO) would have been a few hours less than the 8.5 hours that it took us. We had to go thru parts of Shreveport and that’s where the trouble started. The drive to Shreveport itself is a little over an hour and that presented no problem. We were to take I49 south to Lafayette and then east toward NO. The only problem was I49 was closed due to an accident further on down the road and the potential for icing on the bridges. That required us to take Route 1 which pretty much parallels I49 for quite a while. Well, we saw a sign for I49 and decided to take it hoping it would cut off all the traffic we were driving in and all the red lights we were hitting. That wasn’t to be the case. We wound up making a large circle, about an hour’s worth, and winding up back on Route 1 till we could take a cross road to I49. Once on I49 the traffic was kind of heavy so we couldn’t drive as fast as we wanted. But finally traffic thinned out and we were able to make good time.
We were staying at the home of friends of Jenia’s, Kim and Mike. Talk about southern hospitality… they presented it from the moment we came into their home… in the late hours, almost early morning hours. Jenia and I were so tired from the drive and Stasia was tired because it was way past her bedtime. Other than saying hellos and being pointed to the bedroom, we hit the sack and saved greetings and catching up till the next morning.
I had met Kim and Mike when Kirk and Jenia were in Colorado. They worked on the same job site and they were from NO and were Saints and LSU fans so there was a lot in common. Both are wonderful cooks and couldn’t have been more fun and more welcoming.
They live in a little town called Montz about a 20 minute drive from the downtown NO area. Lots of little towns have their own parades and this one went right by Kim and Mike’s place. People had their ATV’s all decorated and threw beads as if it was a downtown parade.
One of the big things about Mardi Gras is getting beads from the float riders thrown at you. Don’t know how that happened as a ritual but that’s the big thing about a parade. This year, with the Saints being the Super Bowl Champs, the float and beads and people were all decked out in Saints regalia. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a place or thing around the whole NO area that didn’t have something to do with the Saints as well as Mardi Gras. It was the main theme wherever you went.
After the little local parade we went to one of the large local parades in Luling. It’s a town on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River. There is a road on either side of the River known as River Road (go figure) and there’s a lot of life along that road. This parade, according to those in the know, is one of the better and bigger local parades. It certainly was fun and there were lots of colorful people in the crowds. Being a people watcher from way back, it was so much fun for me to just watch the people, both those watching the parade and those in the parade. I also joined in the asking (yelling is more like it) for the riders to throw me beads.
The floats are locally decorated and some of the people riding the floats have been doing so for many years. They have local clubs, more social groups than anything else, and they raise money every year to make their floats and toss their beads. And toss them they did. Just from this parade we have a 33 gallon trash bag full of beads, small stuffed animals, cups with groups’ logos and other small items the kids just love catching.
For any of you who have ever gone to the Rose Bowl Parade or the Huntington Beach 4th of July Parade (hey, remember I've lived in Southern California for 44 years), think of these Mardi Gras parades as more raucous, more participant involvement and more down to earth. Float riders and parade watchers have more fun and are more interactive than any other parades I’ve ever seen. And because of the Super Bowl win, anything Saints was in full force.
After the parade, all the kids went in one car with Kim’s neighbor so Kim, Jenia and I drove back in Jenia’s Yukon… filled with parade stuff. We had to make a stop at a daiquiri store. Only in the NO area can you have a drive thru daiquiri store. We got our drinks as well as something called a King Cake. It’s this delicious cake that kind of looks like a narrow piece of French bread in an oblong shape. It can have all kinds of delicious things in / on it like cream cheese, pecans, strawberries, cinnamon whatever and then frosting and other things they might include in the cake. Unfortunately it is so good and so tempting that I could almost eat a whole one myself. Oh, wait a minute; I did pretty much eat a whole King Cake by myself.
We were supposed to drive home on Sunday but we decided to stay another day and take in another parade. Actually there were some other friends’ of Jenia’s that she wanted to see and they were going to be at the other parade. That parade in Deslanems (probably not spelled right) was nice and we wound up with another big bag of beads. I made the comment that we have enough beads and things to have our own Mardi Gras parade.
After this parade we had to have an early dinner to get some good seafood and that meant going to a place called the Acme Oyster House right in downtown on Veteran’s Street. As it turned out, there was going to be another big NO parade right in front of the restaurant but it wasn’t due to pass by till around 7:30 PM and we were all paraded-out and eaten-out by the time we finished dinner. It would have meant staying in downtown for another couple of hours and then fighting all the traffic to get home. A joint decision was made to get back to Kim and Mike’s and just gel for the evening.
What was very interesting for the parade week is that almost all the schools have the week of Mardi Gras off. Many companies close down on Monday and Tuesday of Mardi Gras week and employees have the time to take in the parades and the festivities. It’s just part of the culture here in the south.
Our next trip to New Orleans will be in late April / early May for something called the Jazz Festival. According to everyone who has been to the festival before, it’s something you want to enjoy so we are going to take it in.
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