Mardi Gras Day 1!!! Please Note Some Pictures Are For “Mature Audiences”.

Our entire lives we have been waiting to be at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Just to be part of the happening party scene here was awesome. Our nephew Stephen played host to us for 4 wonderful days of revelry. There are many different parades each day of the Mardi Gras season and each has its own theme. This parade had a sexual theme and was put on by the Krewe called Tucks:

Check out all the bling we gathered as the parade floats were traveling down St. Charles Street. Even the bags to hold the bling were thrown from floats. With us are our hosts Stephen and Kiana.

The dragon heads were very flexible and would reach into the audience from time to time and either thrill a spectator or scare them to death. More than one crying baby here.

Any football fan will remember the blown call by the ref during the NFC Championship game that cost the New Orleans Saints a trip to the Super Bowl this year.

We managed to catch one of the fake referee flags.

There were some really interesting participants in this parade to say the least.

Now that is my idea of how to be part of a parade!

A hippie float concerning LSD snuck its way into the parade somehow.

The horses in the Urban Cowboys segment of the show occasionally left their “calling card” right in the middle of the street………

This guy followed the horses to pick up any stray “calling cards”. We always wondered what the secret ingredient for gumbo was!!

Here is the lead float headed up by none other than Friar Tuck. Notice his plunger in hand. Each parade had valuable keepsakes that each float would throw out. Only one per float and this parade called for decorated plungers. Not sure why the idea of the plunger but some of them were incredibly intricate. Stephen got one thrown to him by someone he knows from work who was riding on a float.

The parade participants on the floats were dressed to the hilt. All on the Friar Tuck float seemed to be having a wonderful time.

Stephen found that a plunger fit nicely on my calf. It stayed on almost the entire parade and walk home.

There was some interesting stuff being thrown from the OB/GYN float.

Here is a drink coozy we got. People down here collect the different ones from different parades. Very cute indeed!

I had to take a picture of this half eaten sausage sandwich that someone placed in the fence post. We presume that person would finish it later?

After the parade we went to a fine local establishment know for their Po Boy sandwiches. We each had a surf and turf Po Boy. It had lots of roast beef and fried shrimp along with their awesome bread and sauces. Oh my!!!!!

The next morning Laurie and I walked downtown to find some famous King Cake as well as a few more local delicacies. A King Cake is only served during the Mardi Gras season and is out of this world.

We ordered one of each! A croque-nut is a breakfast sandwich served on a grilled donut, instead of bread. Very good indeed!

Had to take a picture of this sign in front of the restaurant we were in. As a sign of respect you were expected to enjoy the hospitality being offered.

Back to Stephen’s apartment to start the tradition of hanging Mardi Gras beads on the Juliet balcony. We accumulated so many of them we had to ditch some on the way home..,

So we added our bling to this tree. Stephen says the beads stay in the tree all year long!

A busy day as we then headed out to meet our friend Paul for a tour of the French Quarter. He lives on Bourbon Street and showed us a great time. He is the Justice of the Peace who married us almost 20 years ago in Hammondsport, NY. We had not seen him since so this was a very happy reunion. We saw some very interesting sights indeed.

A view from Paul’s balcony on Bourbon Street. During the day the crowds were not so bad but at night….
Check out the night life on Bourbon Street during the Mardi Gras season.

We did not see too much face paint but……

If we were not already stuffed to the max we might have actually tried a huge ass burger with its namesake beer.

At least twice a day we were treated to a float-less parade of farm tractors rolling by on their way to pull the floats for another parade. Very surreal.

The staging area for all the floats was right around the corner from Stephen’s apartment. Seeing all 40 or 50 floats just sitting there waiting for the next parade was amazing in itself.

As if a parade and a tour of the French Quarter was not enough, Stephen and Kiana took us out to a Jazz club downtown. It was our first experience taking an Uber rideshare. When ready to go, we hailed the Uber from our smart phone and waited no more than a few minutes for it to show up and drive us to the club. The driver did pull out in front of traffic once and almost got us all killed but…what happens in New Orleans, stays in New Orleans right?

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