February 24, 2006

February 24, 2006 ( Vendredi Gras )

Le Festival de Mardi Gras à Lafayette, Louisiana

YEAR 2 DAY 252

 

WOO-HOO ... laissez les bons temps rouler ! ! !

I would not have believed it if someone had told me 24 hours ago that tonight I would witness my 52 year old wife waving her arms in the air, hollering loudly at people on parade floats "throw me something, mister". HA HA HA HA HA !

Today was mostly cloudy, and a bit cool.

This morning we headed off to do a bit of exploring in and around Lafayette. First stop was Poupart's Bakery. WOW ! ! ! Mardi Gras King Cakes ! We bought quite a bit of specialty baking, including a small King Cake. Leaving Poupart's, the 3½ week old starter had its first "failure to engage". < sigh > Here we go again ! Obviously the heat shield blanket didn't solve the problem. We drove around checking out three different restaurants for lunch. We returned to the first one, Chris' Po Boys. Great choice !

The food was excellent. The service was excellent. The waitress had a bit of difficulty understanding us. I guess our Canadian accents sound pretty odd down here. I really wanted to buy the t-shirt the restaurant staff were wearing, but they were not available for sale. They had the restaurant logo in the front, and my favourite new Cajun phrase imprinted on the back. "Lâ che pas la patate". Don't let go of the potato ... or ... don't give up / hang in there ! For lunch, Joanne had a muffuletta, and I had a shrimp po boy. When the waitress found out we were from Canada, she brought us each a complimentary bowl of gumbo. Joanne's gumbo was sausage and chicken, mine was shrimp and okra. On the way back to the trailer, we stopped at Wal-Mart for a bit of grocery shopping.

Back at Maxie's Campground, we put away our purchases, I started today's accounting, we fed the animals, and I walked Bo. We had 2 strands of Mardi Gras beads, so we each put on a necklace, and left for Le Festival de Mardi Gras à Lafayette. We found out later, from a woman standing next to us while we were watching the opening parade, that it is traditional to start Mardi Gras with a strand of "starter beads" from a previous Mardi Gras, and add to them as you catch beads thrown from the floats in the parades. So, quite by serendipity, we fit right in, each of us with a strand of starter beads.

We drove to Cajun Field, the football stadium adjacent to Cajun Dome, the indoor arena. Welcome to Le Festival de Mardi Gras à Lafayette ! We wandered around the midway, then wandered around the perimeter of Cajun Field. The perimeter of Cajun Field was occupied by large, expensive RV's. We were puzzled by that at first. As we wandered around the outside of the stadium, we realized that each RV was the domain of a business, or politician, or service agency, and each served as the social hub of activity for their clients, and other invited guests. All had tables and chairs set up around them, with food, drink, even bonfires. All of the many Mardi Gras parades of the next few days end by circling Cajun Field, so all these RV's are in prime parade viewing territory.

We wandered over to the main stage to watch the fantastic performance by Nathan Williams Jr. a.k.a. Lil' Nathan & The Zydeco Big Timers. He is known as "lil' Nathan" because he's the son of a well known Zydeco artist, Nathan Williams Sr.. He's a seasoned performer at 19 years of age, having performed since childhood with his father. His 6 piece band includes his 6 year old brother playing washboard. Great Zydeco performance ! The performance, and joie de vivre of the crowd, was so exciting, I felt I had to share it. I phoned each of our sisters, to allow them to hear the sounds of Mardi Gras. They both must think I'm crazy !

We wandered over behind the midway to see the opening parade, just as it was entering the festival grounds. The parade format was high school marching band, followed by float, followed by marching band, followed by float, and so on. The elaborately decorated floats, each sponsored by, and representing a different "krewe", or group, had costumed people throwing beads, and other stuff, into the audience. Hence the "throw me something, mister" chant from the audience. I caught 26 strands of beads ... and one unopened full bag, containing a dozen strands. One of my strands had a doubloon, labelled "The Mystic Krewe Of The Renaissance". Joanne caught 22 strands. The woman standing next to us caught 2 Frisbees, and gave one to us for Bo. The man she was with caught a silly sombrero. I saw an umbrella tossed off a float. I wasn't watching closely enough as a float went by, and I got smacked in the forehead with a strand of beads. Same thing happened to Joanne. She looked away for a minute ... WHACK ... beads in the face. HA HA HA ! After watching a parade in Mission, Texas a month or so ago, and now watching a Mardi Gras parade in Lafayette, we made an observation. The black kids in Louisiana sure have a lot more rhythm than the Mexican kids in the Rio Grande Valley. The Louisiana kids' shortcomings as musicians are more than made up by their ability to dance while they march carrying and playing instruments.

After the parade, we walked back to the main stage. A cowboy band was playing. No thanks. We decided to have a late, light supper. Joanne bought 3 boudin links. Boudin is a Cajun sausage made with pork and rice. At another booth, that won the World Championship É touffé e Cook-off last year, I bought a bowl of their award winning Crawfish É touffé e. The night air was getting a bit cool, and we didn't like the cowboy music, so we walked back to the truck parked in the parking lot, and ate our supper sitting in the truck. We did a bit of planning of where to go, and what to do, for the next few days, then returned to the main stage. We thought the next band was going to be a Zydeco band. It was a Cajun band, but not Zydeco. We watched for awhile, then left about 11:00 P.M..

MMMMM ... as I sit typing this at 1:00 A.M., Joanne has just served me a slice of Mardi Gras King Cake.

While eating her boudin sausages, Joanne broke a tooth. It seems very odd that a tooth would break while eating sausages ! What actually broke was the veneer applied to one of her front teeth, to repair a tooth she broke over 20 years ago. She was clearing snow, using a snowblower, while I was away from home on a business trip. She slipped and fell, smashing her face on the snowblower, breaking a tooth. She thinks it will be amusing, if she goes to a dentist while we're still down here in the deep south, and explains that to a dentist who most likely has never seen a snowblower. Too bad that tooth didn't break while we were still down by Mexico. Dentistry is a lot cheaper in Mexico. Maybe it wasn't really the sausages that caused the tooth to break. Maybe it was getting whacked in the face with a strand of Mardi Gras beads ! HA HA HA !

DSK