You know that New Orleans is coming back from the depths of Katrina when you get stuck in a traffic jam that lasts for what seems like hours where almost every thoroughfare to the parade route is blocked.
Welcome back Mardi Gras to the Crescent City.
While parades are “mamboing” to the Mardi Gras beat, the bands and the floats are hitting the streets, today to Bacchus, yesterday to Endymion.
Yes, Mardi Gras is back, New Orleans style.
The days of finding parking spots near the parade routes are over after a two year period of relative availability.
In fact, two years ago, many wondered if New Orleans should even be engaging in carnival. But, the “greatest free show on earth” must go on, and it did, and it is continuing to do so until Tuesday.
Today, many revelers will decide if they want to take in Bacchus or the Super Bowl where hometown hero, Eli Manning, will be throwing passes for the Giants. Many parade goers are expected to be armed with radios and portable television sets so they do not miss a pass or a Mardi Gras “catch”.
Regardless of the football championship, those on the floats will be throwing the valuable beads to expected throngs who just can’t get enough of music, of frivolity, of marvel that a beautiful city that almost thirty months ago was given up for dead, is alive and is throwing one heck of a party, because it deserves it.
