Mardi Gras

Went to New Orleans last weekend, for Mardi Gras. I drove down there Friday with my friend Linda, who is from New Orleans, and we came back Tuesday. Free room and board--her brother and sister-in-law live there and were kind enough to invite us to stay at their VERY nice house.

Basically everybody goes to all the parades to get beads, which the people riding on the floats throw to the audience. I don't know why anyone wants beads, but I came home with a bag full of them anyway. They make good cat toys at least.

For the kids, families have these ladders with a big seat on top, so the kids can sit up higher and have a chance of catching some beads. A lot of people (not just the kids) dress up in costumes too, but more so on the actual Mardi Gras day than on the weekend before.

The parades, which went all day every day that we were there, had performers and high school bands marching between the big floats. A variety of people watch the parades, from little babies in strollers to grandparents in lawn chairs. And they all want beads, doubloons, or other "throws." I still don't understand why people want that stuff, but they do. Some people even buy houses or rent apartments specifically because the building is along a parade route, and they watch from their balconies.

The best thing was, it was about 70 degrees out, and the trees already had buds on them. Then I came back to Little Rock, and it snowed again yesterday. Blech.

Next entry--Bourbon Street.

Winter finally showed up

Yep, our one week of winter has hit. It snowed today, a whole two inches, and I saw people walking down to the hill with cardboard boxes to use as sleds. That's the Little Rock version of a Flexible Flyer--open up a cardboard box so it's flat, and try to slide down a hill on it. The snow was so wet, I can't imagine they even made it to the bottom of the hill before the thing fell apart. I tried to take some photos of it, but they came out blurry--I guess I was laughing too hard.