Mardi Gras Parade

UGH!

This year Soulard Mardi Gras was a total bust. Dennis is working on his Dad's truck today, so it was just Chris and myself. We got down there in pleanty of time. We parked across the highway just a little south of Gus's Pretzels. It was a long walk across 55 on Arsenal, through the brewery, and then up Broadway. We stopped right at the end of the parade route, and set ourselves up on a nice spot of fence. There was a good 10' hole when we got there.

Some people began to gather around us. Then right at 11:00, the Harley's came through. A woman and two girls came to stand by us, and the girls managed to scoot my polite son all the way down the fence to a group of drunk young women. I tried to convince Chris to be a little "mean" but he just didn't get the whole spot-staking concept yet. Oddly, one of the little girls recognized me from hunter's education last weekend. How strange is that?

We waited and waited and waited, still in a fairly big hole, about an hour and fifteen minutes for the parade to finally come. Then a huge push of people swarmed around us. A tall guy behind me kept hitting me in the head. Adults were reaching around and even over Chris. The floats were mostly out of beads, or just weren't throwing them. I caught a few, but I was mostly jostled and I was really worried about Chris. I've taken him to Mardi Gras about six times, and I've NEVER been in such a rude bunch of people. I've never seen the crowd so angry, and I've never felt so grated. It's always been so much fun, and we've always had good luck with finding a little clump of families, who let the kids up to the front and block the more rowdy people like a herd of elephants.

I think it is because the extremely nice weather brought out near record crowds, and we were on the market side of Broadway. We're usually always on the river side. This is also the first year we waited down at the far end, instead of up nearer the market, or by the big curve. I'll go again, but I'll stay on the river side, and hopefully I'll get a chance to bring Dennis down with me to help me corral Chris in a little pocket of safety.

So we left early, bought some Gus's pretzels on the way out, and we're still waiting for Dennis to come home. He said he'd be here about two hours ago...