Green and Gold and Purple

Mardi Gras Parade – Waveland/Bay St. Louis, MS

I thought all the people down here were Viking and Packer fans with all the green, gold, and purple decorations everywhere.  It turned out that those are the official colors for Mardi Gras.

We went to our first Mardi Gras parade today.  US Highway 90 closed at 10:00 a.m. for the start of a 1:00 parade in Waveland/Bay St. Louis.  We arrived at the parade route about 11:00 and there was some serious tailgating going on!  Not only did people have their grills fired up and cooking great smelling food, some even brought their own full size Porta-Potties which were either in the bed of their pick-up truck or on the spot they had claimed for their parade party along the road.  A few had signs on them that said “Private Potty…Don’t Even Ask”.

We walked along the parade route while people watching, and stopped at a place selling boiled crawfish. 

This is how you eat the critters: with your fingers, squeeze off the head and suck out the juice, then grab the meat in the tail between your teeth and pull it out and eat it. If you’re a rookie like us, peel the shell off the tail then eat the meat.  They tasted good, but it seemed like a lot of work for just a little morsel.

The parade finally reached us about 2:00.  The first few floats were of local royalty and high school bands.  Next came the other crazy floats, with crazy dressed float riders throwing beads, silk flowers, other trinkets as well as some toys for the kids.

We got our share of beads without having to flash.  Anyway, it was too cold for that.  Jim even scored a noise maker.

Something I hadn’t seen before, and I think is a brilliant idea, were homemade parade viewing stands for little kids to sit on top.  A wooden seat was attached to the top of the step ladder and the kid could sit there watching the parade with an unobstructed view. The pluses for mom and dad were that the kid couldn’t get lost in the crowd, and they didn’t have to have them sitting on their shoulders to see the parade. The picture below shows mom standing on the ladder behind the baby while the dad is handing the little guy the stuffed animal he had just scored.

There are several Mardi Gras festivities and parades scheduled in the surrounding towns this week.  We are thinking about going to New Orleans (an hour drive away) to take in that experience.  We got the scoop from the locals about which of the N.O. parades are the best.

As our waitress said yesterday “Mardi Gras is ma favorite holiday of the year, y’all”.  We can certainly tell that she isn’t alone.