2/6/13

 Another day at the car dealers in Metarie, just northwest of New Orleans.  It took two hours to get the heater fan fixed in the car.  we wondered the mall again.  This place is definitely upscale!  Michael Kors purses for $200 and up!

This one was a different designer and was $275! Very pretty, though!

     Once the car was done we drove to town and looked for a parking space near St. Charles Street.  We found one only a block away in a residential area.  We then had 5 hours to kill (yea we got there a bit early but didn't know what to expect!  We wandered around Magazine street again and had a very nice day.  Later in the afternoon we found a very cool market called The Fresh Market.  We think it was the most beautiful grocery store ever!  It was a cross between the Coop and Trader Joe's and the new Safeway.  It has been open only 8 months and was very upscale!  We got a canoli but didn't like it much.

     About an hour before the Parade  at 5:30 we headed up to St Charles to check out the festivities.  People everywhere.  Everyone happy and getting their spots.  All polite and helpful to the newbies.  The weather had been great all day Upper 60s.  

     Venders started showing up with shopping carts full of cotton candy (yep I got some!!), plastic trinkets, wigs, hairy legging with stripes of yellow, green, and purple, beads and any thing with colored lights!  Swords, hair decorations, necklaces, etc, etc.  Some people showed up wearing all sorts of outfits and wigs.  Kristi and Amy, this has to be on your bucket lists!  Even your dad got into the festivities!

     And then the parade!!!  Police cars with lights and whoop, whoop sirens, horses , school marching bands with majorettes, dancers, and tap shoes, funny little cars and the floats!!!  The first parade was the Druids krewe.  Men with white masks and gowns throwing beads from double decker floats.  The floats had huge heads or designs on them and were really tall!  A truck with a tall pole had to go ahead just to make sure there were no branches in the way.  You really get into the spirit quickly!  Having someone notice you and throw something to you becomes the most important thing at the time!!  I got smacked in the face with beads while looking somewhere else!.  Our friends to either side and behind us were all so kind.  Giving us pointers and beads! The second parade was all women on the floats.  They were the Nix krewe.  Last year was their first year and their thing are small homemade purses that they throw along with their beads.  It is really something to get a purse.  During the melee (is that the right word for hoopla?) the sweet lady next to me got one and gave it to me and said "this is the coveted purse, you can keep it to remember your time here".  Soo nice.  I would turn around and there would be beads in our chairs that folks put in there for us! somewhere in the midst of the Nix it started raining.  We happened  to be under a big oak so it blocked some of it but we got soaked.  Jerry had on a sweat shirt,( his Humboldt County one and that reminds me, while walking in the French Quarter yesterday, a young man saw Jerry's sweatshirt and couldn't believe it!  He stammered a bit and explained he was from Ferndale!  His Dad owns Sequoia Gas!) and I had my coat and we had an umbrella. The poor kids in the marching bands looked miserable but I guess it happens often. 

 The lady on the right is who gave me the Nix Purse

 Beads ready to be thrown

 Crazy male dancers

 This one's for you, Amy!

 The aftermath!  We are told the streets will be pristine by the morning.

We never did sit down and so the chairs became wet lakes of beads.  We did catch lots of things on our own and had a great time!  Luckily we caught some cloth bags and could put our loot in there and stagger back to the car.  

     Maggie guided  us back to Parc D'Orleans,

 and we slept like the dead!!!  Home by 10:30.