Mardi Gras Parade: Mobile Mystics

We finally made it to a Mardi Gras parade!  The first parade we planned to go to was canceled and then it rained on our second parade.  So yesterday we finally got to go to our first one. 

Grace was all bundled up and ready to go.  The parade was scheduled to begin at 1:00.  We arrived about 30 minutes early.

By 1:30, Grace was starving so we bought her a corndog from a nearby stand.

At 2:15 the parade still hadn't started so we split a caramel apple funnel cake. 

Meanwhile these vendors were crawling all over the place. 

Grace was hanging on to the bars and would wave at them and say, "Hey puh-ade!" or "Bye Dora!  Bye Bob-bob!"  (Hey parade!  Bye Dora!  Bye Spongbob!)  Thank goodness she didn't realize Dora and Spongebob were for sale!

The parade finally started so Grace climbed on Daddy's shoulders to see.

First came the masked horsemen.  They were very festive! 

And men passing out paper flowers.

Then the floats started.  Each float had a "blues" theme.

There were several marching bands interspersed between the floats.

Each float had a lot of people on it - all wearing blue and silver outfits with blue masks and hats.

There was even a Smurfs float - keeping up with the "blues" theme I suppose.  I loved the Smurfs as a kid but now I think it's kinda odd that Smurfette was the only chick in a village of 100 little blue men...

The parade riders were very generous with the beads.  They would throw handfuls at a time to people.

And stuffed animals.  Do you see how big some of the stuffed animals were?  Several people caught the really BIG ones.  They were thrown in the more crowded areas not far from where we were. 

Here's the Blues Clues float. 

Then came the Mayfield float.  It had a sign on the front that said, "Feeling blue?  Eat some ice cream."  And that's what they threw us - ice cream sandwiches. 

We caught 3 of them.  Grace ate 2 and David ate 1.  I was too cold for ice cream.

Then came the Blue Angels.  They threw moon pies.

In between some of the floats, Shriners clowns walked around.  They helped clean the streets by sweeping beads and other things to the crowds behind the barricades.  This one snacked on a fallen moon pie.

Then more floats came along.  I don't remember the theme to this one, but it was very generous with the stuffed animals.

Grace (with David's help) caught a talking gorilla, a green bunny rabbit, and a pink Carebear.

A few more floats followed like Blue Men (or something along those lines).

Blues Brothers

And then my personal favorite, Bailout Blues.

See Uncle Sam?  He's riding a big porky pig.

There are signs for AIG, GM, Chrystler, etc.  Quite funny.

But the best part is U.S. Economy written on toilet paper and being flushed down the toilet along with all the money...

Next decorated go-carts rode by.

 Followed by a firetruck which marked the end of the parade. 

The parade route started near the Civic Center, turned onto Government Street (where we were) and then continued for several blocks before turning onto other streets to make a big circle.  Then it came back down Government Street again to finish at the starting point.  Other parade-goers told us we would start seeing the floats again in about 20-30 minutes, but we were tired.  And it was cold.  And very windy out.  Plus we had only eaten junk food and were craving a real meal.  So rather than wait for the floats to come back by, we left and missed most of the traffic. 

After we left, we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Original Oyster House, for some grilled seafood.  Then we headed home to count up our Mardi Gras booty.

It consisted of

3 ice cream sandwiches (eaten at the parade) 

5 moonpies (2 banana, 3 chocolate)

Grace really liked the moonpies.  (Sidenote:  Grace didn't get the moonpie until today.  And only after eating all of her lunch.  It was a small one and all 3 of us split it.  She just got the first bite.)  Neither David nor I really liked the moonpie.  It kinda tasted like cardboard around a squishy marshmallow.

Anyway, on with our Mardi Gras booty list...

1 oatmeal cream pie

2 plastic bracelets

2 frisbies

156 Mardi Gras beaded necklaces

and

10 stuffed toys (pink CareBear, brown Beanie Baby scorpion, white fuzzy bunny, green Beanie Baby bunny, Bambi deer, tan dog, bear wearing a hoodie, white singing gorilla, stuffed football, and the donky from Shrek).

WOW.  All that and we only watched one parade go by one time.  Now we've got to decided what to do with all this stuff.  And since the parade started over TWO HOURS LATE, next time we'll plan to arrive 30 late instead of early.  And we'll walk to a real restaurant instead of eating at the stands or we'll pack a cooler with fruit and sandwiches and bring lawn chairs to make a whole day out of it - especially since next week there are multiple parades back to back instead of just 1 in the afternoon. 

In spite of the miserable weather, low blood sugar followed by crampy stomachs caused by junk food, and the really long wait to get things started, I really am looking forward to our next parade.  I'll be much better prepared and thus able to really enjoy it.