Rio Travelers: February 2015

Carnival involves everyone in Louisana and surrounding states including our grandaughter Payton's school Zackary Elementary. The first group of pictures is her school's Mardi Gras parade. Unfortunately we missed it because we were with our guests in New Orleans.

On Valentine's day, we had a costume making party with pizza and muffalettas. We each picked a saying and a sheet and prepared our "outfits" to wear on Mardi Gras day. This is a theme that Adventure continues each year and people at Mardi Gras actually made comment that "the sheets were back". I mentioned muffalettas - they are a sandwich made with ham, mortadella, salami and cheese with a special olive spread available in New Orleans - DELICIOUS!

Valentine's Day night had us attending our first Super Krewe parade - Endymion. These guys know how to party. They start drinking at breakfast and have to be tied to the floats then after the parade have a formal ball and drink some more in the superdome til morning. The beads smell like beer and they throw things at you with a vengeance. Two of us got hit by beads. I got a cut on my nose and one of the guests' glasses were broken. All in good fun and it didn't stop me from jumping out of my seat every time a float went by to catch more beads.

The next night was Bacchus, another group of drunk men on floats.

Monday was a day to rest then, on Tuesday (Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday) we returned to NOLA for our last outing. Most of the guests opted to stay in the stands to watch the day's parades but about 11 of the hardier souls donned our costumes and strolled along Bourbon Street. We had a blast and I can't even begin to describe the sights except to say that some got an "R" rating. We left the city by late afternoon and I am still trying to picture what went on from the time we left and midnight when Mardi Gras was officially declared ended for 2015.