My first adventure was snowboarding... my second was a trip to New Orleans - for Mardi Gras... or to be completely accurate - the weekend of Mardi Gras, not actually Fat Tuesday.
A Phi Sigma Pi roadtrip with Caitlin and Em... a trip I normally wouldn't tell my parents I was taking, but it was in February and we wanted a vehicle that would be able to handle in the snow, so I had to ask my dad to borrow a Chevy Blazer. Thank goodness we did. That weekend it snowed in 49 out of the 50 states - only Hawaii didn't have any. Our drive down wasn't bad, but it was strange to be driving in Mississippi with a white dusting of snow on the ground. We had just driven all night and were starving and we kept hearing on the radio how stores and restaurants might be shutting down for the "blizzard" (which was a flurry at best in Ohio terms). That is - if there were any restaurants. We decided we were hungry and should start looking for restaurants. 40 minutes later we saw a sign: Cracker Barrel - 26 miles. Legitimately the only restaurant along the highway. We couldn't have been more thankful to get there - and to see it hadn't closed due to the snow. They then served my milk in a huge frosted mug that I would liken to a beer stein. First time I've ever drank milk in a beer stein. I think appropriate for a trip to Mardi Gras.
We stayed with our PSP hosts, Emily, Kyle and Greg, in Baton Rouge. Saw the first ever Cane's. Going to be completely honest - had no idea it started at LSU. Luckily, they convinced us to eat at Chimes - because although I love Texas Toast, I can get that on High Street in Columbus. Em and I shared an alligator appetizer - grilled and blackened. I'm going to be honest - pretty delish. The next morning, we rode a bus down to New Orleans (about an hour away) for a day - and night - in the city. Our first stop, appropriately, was Pat O'Briens for a Hurricane, yes at 10 a.m.
The patio at Pat O's was decked out Saints. We were in New Orleans only a few days after the Saints Super Bowl win so it was a pretty amped up time to be in the city.
We tried to see a little bit of the city before it turned into a hot mess. The St. Louis Cathedral...
...and Jackson Square - which was unfortunately, but understandably, closed off so the drunken tourists wouldn't trash the beautiful park there. It was a quaint scene.. with the Cathedral in the background, the horse-drawn carriages. Kind of felt like it should be the set of a Disney movie - oh wait... Princess and the Frog. :)
Saw the Mississippi River. And yes I am wearing Ohio State beads... and out of the 60 beads I caught - not earned - while in New Orleans, it was the only set I bought because I desperately wanted them.
Honestly, I think this was the biggest misconception I had about Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I thought you could only "earn" beads, and I quickly learned that a) They throw out a TON in parades and if you smile and wave and look cute they might throw you the extra special ones even without flashing them, b) There is a valid barter system on the streets. If you have something that someone else wants and it is a reasonably equal trade, you can probably again get what you want without any boobs involved. It might take a little longer, but I much prefer it.
Honestly, my goal was to make sure I had beads from both of the parades I went to - Tucks and Isis... and I accomplished that.
We finished the night with two hand grenades from Tropical Isle - each. Or we tried, but I think we all failed to even finish one.
The next day - our 30 hour journey home. It should have been about a 14 hour drive, but... we had some delays. For example, running out of gas in Northern Mississippi. We had been switching drivers and apparently no one noticed that our gas gauge had been stuck on a quarter for the last - 5 hours and who knows how many miles. We are on the side of a deserted dark highway in a snowstorm, and pretty sure we are about to die when strange men pull over and want us to roll down our windows (we might be dumb enough to not put gas in our car, but we aren't that stupid). There's something to be said about Southern hospitality though. We call a cop - who when he asks where we are, I can completely honestly say I have no idea and he laughs at me... but when he came out and found us he put us in the back of his cop car, drives home - yes to his house - and gets his gas can. He empties his own gas out of it into our car and follows us to the next exit to make sure we make it safely and can get filled up.
So my friends read a Facebook status that says I'm in the back of a cop car during my weekend at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
After we get back on the road - and enjoy a lecture from my father "you should never let it get down to a quarter tank anyway" - it takes us another day and a half to get home. We crash at Caitlin's brother's in Tennessee for a few hours of sleep (and because we couldn't see more than a few inches ahead of us) before battling the snow covered again in the morning. It was the day that 71 was shut down north of Columbus for a 30+ car pileup. But we finally made it home.... we were exhausted and smelled rank. (The streets were so full of filth by the end of the night and smelled so disgusting that all of our suitcases and clothes, and eventually the car, smelled too - I can't even imagine it after Fat Tuesday itself). But it was so nice to be home.
No comments:
Post a Comment