I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about bringing my family to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, LA.

All my fears were put to rest after we attended our first night parade, Endymion. We sat in the grandstands where there were tons of families, beads and fun. It was a great introduction and made me realize Mardi Gras was not what I expected.

The next day I really got a taste of “Family Gras” when we spent the day tailgating on St. Charles. This is where families camp out and spend the day eating, watching the parades, playing football and over all having a great time. We also experienced the ladders and how apparent this part of Mardi Gras was all about the kids.

Finally on our last day (Lundi Gras), we experienced the Orpheus parade in a whole new way from a balcony on St. Charles. Thanks to Kevin Kelly from Houmas House.

Whether from a grandstand, on the ground or from a balcony, each of our Mardi Gras experiences were amazing and totally family-friendly.

Not once during our 3 day adventure did I see anything inappropriate, and I’m being absolutely honest and not sugar coating any part of the trip. I also felt completely safe walking the streets of New Orleans. Many props to the New Orleans police department for being active and present at every corner of the event…we didn’t even see a single altercation.

We knew that most of the debauchery that is portrayed at Mardi Gras is pretty much secluded to Bourbon Street. Knowing this we simply stayed away and had no less of a good time because of it. It’s also important to know when to leave, as where not to go. We headed back to the hotel as soon as the parades were over, about 10pm.  Common sense really plays a big role when bringing children to an event such as this.

For us, Mardi Gras was about spending time together as a family, enjoying great food, fabulous company and just experiencing first hand the magic and excitement of the parades, floats, beads, masks and other festival treats.

I’m so confident that Mardi Gras can be a family-friendly experience that we are already planning a trip back next year.

I encourage all families to see it for themselves at least once. It’s truly an experience you will never forget!

An alarm clock is just a clock if you don’t set it. I learned that the hard way early Fat Tuesday morning.

The night before heading out to the New Orleans Arena to ride in Zulu, I rode on Orpheus. It was my first time and it showed: I had too few beads, didn’t get enough sleep the night before and got to the convention center just in time for the parade. It was an amazing experience, as I’ve been looking up at floats for my entire life, so the hiccups didn’t slow me down.

Judging by my experience riding in Zulu, though, I didn’t learn much. Instead of having too few beads, I only had 12 beads and three sacks of coconuts. I was working on an hour and a half of sleep because I got home from the Bacchus Ball around 3 a.m., and I (thought) I had to be at the New Orleans Arena for Zulu just two hours later. I would have slept through that deadline if it weren’t for my dog slobbering all over my face on the couch. So at 5:45 a.m. I bolted out my door to try and make the beginning, which was set for 45 minutes from then, and get onto the float.

Fortunately, after running for what felt like a mile after parking, I was able to make it in time and the Zulu krewe was more than obliged to get me situated.

When I showed up everyone was already set and ready to go, complete with blackface makeup and afro-wigs, the traditional garb for the krewe. I had to have one of the members fix my makeup since I showed up so late:

The crowds were huge to start. It’s a unique route that goes south on Jackson Avenue instead of north on Napoleon Avenue, like a lot of other superkrewes do.

Then we arrived at St. Charles Avenue with Rex, the other huge parade on Fat Tuesday, hot on our tail. We’d head all the way down to Canal Street, much like last night at Orpheus, but this time we’d go further north to Broad Street.

Along the way we passed by the WWL-TV stand at Gallier Hall where, from left, photographer Paul Corcoran, meteorologist Carl Arrendondo and anchor Angela Hill were watching the parade.

Even though I had no beads at this point, I was loaded up with coconuts. Here’s my mother after I tossed three of them at her:

After reaching Canal, we were met by an insane amount of parade-goers until the very end.

I’ve been in two parades in the last 24 hours. I rode for 15 hours of it and slept for a little under two. It was, to say the least, not a way of easing into the experience. But after hovering over tens of thousands of voracious screamers and having them all stare the coconut in my hand down, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sure felt good for once to look down, not up, during Mardi Gras.

I had a goal of riding in two parades, back to back: Orpheus on Lundi Gras and Zulu on Fat Tuesday. No one said it would be easy, but everyone said it would be fun.

One parade in, they were right.

The two parades are about as close together as you can get, with just a few early morning hours separating the two. Orpheus runs around 6 p.m. Monday and ends around 12 a.m. Zulu begins at 8 a.m. and ends anywhere between 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Usually about three to four hours before the parade begins, riders sign in and buy any last beads before boarding up onto the float. This shot was taken just before the floats left the convention center in New Orleans.

Once on the float, there’s pretty much no room. It’s jammed with people jostling for spots to put their beads — or throws, as the locals often call them.

After leaving the convention center, there’s an hour-long ride to the beginning of the route. There riders try and get situated, and after nearing Napoleon, they’re all let out into the street, where food and drinks are shared before the long ride.

Here I am on the left with my friend, Will, who was riding along with me on this little experience. As you can see, they let us walk around before the ride truly begins.

Here’s a picture of the man leading the Mandarin Cheesecake float, which is where Will and I rode for the trip. Doesn’t he look peaceful? He was about the only one. All the riders were pumped and ready to go.

…And we’re off. It didn’t take long to see Saints fans. The Ying Yang Twins were blaring from the crowd almost from start to finish.

The last four pictures were taken on the early stretch of the St. Charles route. It’s where many of the locals go during Mardi Gras, and where you’ll see a huge mix of young and old. There will be college kids partying alongside those collecting their pensions and retirement checks. Here parade-goers will stake out a spot hours and hours before the parade even begins, sometimes days. Grilling and tents pop up along this section of the route.

Here are some more shots from St. Charles Avenue up until Lee Circle:

Roughly half way through the route, we come up on Lee Circle.

Lee Circle, the only roundabout in New Orleans, marks the bridge between Uptown (the St. Charles route) and Downtown. From here on out you’ll see a lot less camping and a condensed amount of people. You’ll also see them on rafters and rooftops, since the parade is often going down a more narrow street than before.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten catches a throw from yours truly.

Around 11:45 p.m. we arrived in the Orpheus Ball. It’s like a fancy, indoors Mardi Gras where all the floats come in one-by-one and throngs of formally attired parade-goers greet them. Then krewe then parks, gets out and enjoys the ball.

And that’s that. As of my typing this, it is 1:15 a.m. Smashmouth is playing after coach Sean Payton greeted the crowd. I’m a little tired and a little overstimulated, but it was an experience of a lifetime.

I’m all ready to do it over again in just a few hours when I’ll be riding in Zulu. I’ll keep you posted.

Ok, today was about Bacchus and Beads and Brees, but if you ask me, Mardi Gras, the way the locals celebrate, is all about the food.

This morning we headed to our outpost on St. Charles to catch as many parades as we could. I caught about three and have the beads to prove it. But I also got a taste of King Cake. This one was from one of the many Randazzo bakeries.

I also got a bowl of jambalaya and while I make mine from a Paul Prudhomme recipe, I swear, jambalaya tastes different in NOLA than anywhere else. Also, how impressive is it to make a delicious batch in such a big cauldron?

Finally I learned a grasshopper is not always a terrestrial plant-eating insect with hind legs adapted for leaping or even a cocktail made of creme de menthe and cream. No at Mardi Gras a grasshopper is a jalapeno, stuffed with cream cheese, topped with a slice of flank steak and wrapped in, yes, bacon. Grilled to perfection I’d say.

Happy Mardi Gras y’all and Bon Appetite!

Photo courtesy of Taylor Davidson

I should start with an admission. Hello, my name is Sloane Berrent and I am madly in love with New Orleans. And as of December 1, 2009, I now live in New Orleans. Yet for all my hooting and hollering to friends about how great New Orleans is and what a once-in-a-lifetime experience it is to be here now, in the post-Katrina reconstruction and recent excitement of a new mayor and Super Bowl Champions, this Mardi Gras is my first Mardi Gras ever. So how did a Northern girl, Pittsburgh native, New England educated and for the past five years California-living girl end up in New Orleans?

Well, that’s a longer story entirely, but it all bases around what I’ve come to realize now is the essence of Mardi Gras. The ideal that anything is possible. Want to create five days of parades from the cultural to the subversive where families linger outside and neighbors talk to each other and no one is sitting at home playing video games and getting yelled at for not doing the dishes? Come to Mardi Gras. Want to dress up and raise a small umbrella and dance through the streets behind a brass band? Come to Mardi Gras. Want to see children laughing and running in the streets and catching beads and small stuffed animals with pure looks of joy on their faces? Come to Mardi Gras. Want to start the day surrounded by total stranger but end it with new friends (and probably an outstanding invitation to Sunday dinner one week)? Come to Mardi Gras.

Does the revelry sometimes get out of hand? Sure. So does tailgating at a football game or a cocktail party in the home. But seeing as how there has been a parade every day since last Thursday (save Monday we were all tired from the Superbowl win after all), I haven’t seen one indiscretion worthy of concern. What I have seen, the ladders, the care people take for each other, the ebb and flow of the parade routes as they roll through, is something to relish and appreciate. It’s what makes New Orleans, well, New Orleans. A city with a culture and a language all its own, just beckoning you in to experience her for yourself.

If this isn’t your year to come celebrate Mardi Gras with us, start making plans for next year. I’ll be on year two and much wiser to the “local” ways and you can come find me on the neutral ground celebrating with the rest of the New Orleanians and lovers o New Orleans.

Note to the reader: Look up definition of neutral ground.

Yours from the Lower Garden District,

Sloane

At least to a 5-year-old.

My family arrived in New Orleans today and we experienced our first Mardi Gras parade, Endymion.

I quickly learned Endymion was one of the must-see super krewes, and we were not disappointed. The floats were large and colorful with elaborate designs. The crowds were loud and fun. It was such an awesome vibe and nothing like anything I’ve every experienced.

Being that this is our first Mardi Gras and we are traveling with our 5-year-old daughter, I had a few reservations about taking her to a night parade.

While the mix of people was eclectic, there were definitely many families with young children and not once did I feel unsafe or that we were in an inappropriate environment for a child. In fact, she had a blast and was ALL about the beads. She cleaned up pretty well for her first time.

I do have one note about the beads that I wasn’t prepared for. The throws can be pretty hard, especially with beads of a large size. At one point in the parade some beads hit my finger pretty hard and I was worried for a few minutes as the pain seemed unbearable. All is well, but a pair of gloves is defintely something to consider when trying to catch those beads.

With our first parade behind us, I can’t wait to see what’s in store for tomorrow. Hopefully more parades, beads, food and fun!

Today I saw two different kinds of parades, both enjoyable but totally different from Muses last night. Iris is the oldest women’s krewe in New Orleans and the theme this year was “Children’s Classics.” Floats midday paid homage to stories old and new that appeal to the child in all of us. Seeing this parade from Gallier Hall was the opposite of the super krewe parade of Endymion I caught on Canal Street. After a day of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, and seeing kids on ladders collecting their beads and toys, came the mammoth floats of Endymion and the adults clamoring for their beads and toys into the night.

Endymion is a super krewe and everything seemed super-sized, it was louder, flashier with the biggest floats I have seen so far. It also had the biggest crush of people. Arriving towards the middle of the parade, there was no way to get very close but the excitement buzzed through the crowds. Perhaps the throws really were bigger, but I never got close enough to catch anything, other than perhaps parade fever.

I’ll try to explain what it feels like to ride in a Mardi Gras parade. Pictures can help show you what I saw, but my words can’t explain how it felt.

A couple days ago I mentioned I would be riding in a parade during my first Mardi Gras as a local.

Friends helped me prepare, helping me get the throws I needed for the ride, explaining what happened on the day, telling me what to expect and how to plan. And I had seen many parades as a spectator. I prepared for my ride with a bit of knowledge, but still not knowing exactly what to expect.

And now, a day after riding in Krewe of Druids, I know that the feeling, the meaning, the context, the experience, simply has to be lived to be understood.

Krewe of Druids

Riding in a parade isn’t just about the parade. The brief public performance is just a small part of the experience, the final segment of a day of celebrating and bonding. Since a bit of what happens behind the day is secretive, I really can’t talk about it; but it’s a day spent among friends, a chance to catch up with people you may or may not have seen since your ride the previous year, a chance to simply enjoy being a part of the Mardi Gras experience, part of what Mardi Gras means to New Orleans.

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Stepping on the float is the culmination of days, months or years of preparation, depending on your role, your krewe, and your level of involvement. As a rookie, my duties were minimal and all I had to do was step on the float, strap myself in and stay in line. I immediately felt this surge, like I just stepped onto a stage to get ready to perform. You start tearing open bags of beads, setting up throws and picking out the throws, plushes and specials to give to specific people along the route. You open up packs of special beads and hang them up on hooks behind you, to make it easier for you to find them in the mess of beads swirling around your feet, but also to kind of show off the beads you have, so that people will yell at you for specific throws.

Once the parade starts, the blur begins. You start listening, watching, interacting with the crowd, choosing what to throw and who to throw to. You strain to pick out people in the crowd, missing people even as they chant their name (it happens!). You start to live the role behind the mask, engaging with the crowd while fully, completely, feeling your own anonymity. People come up and ask for beads, pointing to the beads strung up behind you. Parents with kids on their shoulders come up to you, asking for plushes (stuffed throws) and for the special beads they know you have tucked away. At the same time, you look for people on the edges of the crowds, the guys in the back that don’t normally get beads thrown their way. You dig into your sacs to pull out the strings of simple beads, the packages of special beads, the frisbees, bouncy balls, staffs and rubber chickens that you bought specifically because you knew they would be fun to throw and to give.

And then you get this pure sense of enjoyment, the joy of being able to do one simple thing to hundreds of people along the route: to give.

If there is one thing I took away from the experience, it’s that it felt so good to give.

And it’s a feeling I’m looking forward to creating and experiencing next year.

More to come here on this blog and on Twitter @MyMardiGras and @tdavidson.

Each year early on Mardi Gras morning, New Orleans comes alive long before the revelers and parade floats take to the streets.

The streets come alive with day-glo feathers, intricate hand-stitched bead work, tamborines and drums and cries such as “Get out da the way, big chief comin’,” and “Hey, pocky way.” It is the ancient tradition of the Mardi Gras Indians who bring the streets alive with their stunning costumes and their music and their chants.

Primarily an African American tradition, gangs of Mardi Gras Indians emerge on the streets of New Orleans donning elaborate, resplendent feathered costumes that have taken nearly a year to make, often by hand, and costing hundreds, some times thousands of dollars. The indians use the day to introduce the city to their new suits.

The gangs of Indians are divided by neigborhoods and known by tribal names like Yellow Pocahontas, Creole Wild West, Fi-Yi-Yi and7th Ward Hard Headers.

Drawing from Native American culture, the tradition of Mardi Gras Indians is believed to have begun in the late 19th century, and, as essential to New Orleans as mainstream Mardi Gras events, their influence is seen in the music of the Neville Brothers, Dr. John, the Wild Tchoupitoulas, the Wild Magnolias and the Meters, especially in songs like “Handa Wanda”, “Iko Iko” and “Hey Pocky Way”.

The violent rivalries of the past have been replaced, where gangs armed with hatchets and guns would shoot and stab one another, the indians now have staged showdowns, as the prettiest suits rule the streets.

A hierarchy also rules the gangs, with a big chief as the leader.

“You also have your Spy Boy, your Flag Boy and your Wild Man. Your Spy Boy is way out front, three blocks in front the chief. The Flag Boy is one block in front so he can see the Spy Boy up ahead and he can wave his flag to let the chief know what is going on. Today, they don’t do like they used to. Today you’re not going to see any Spy Boy with a pair of binoculars around his neck and a small crown so he can run. Today a Spy Boy looks like a chief and somebody carrying a big old stick. It’s been years since I seen a proper flag. Today everybody has a chief stick. The Wild Man wearing the horns in there to keep the crowd open and to keep it clear,” said Tootie Montana, the deceased, but revered chief of the Yellow Pocahontas.

I never imagined I would get to ride in a parade during my first Mardi Gras as a local. Wednesday, I will.

Buying Beads, New Orleans, LA

When I first said “yes, I’ll ride in Krewe of Druids during Mardi Gras”, I didn’t really know what it meant or what was involved. I just knew it was the kind of experience I wanted, the kind of experience I needed.

I had been to Mardi Gras before and wondered who these people were riding in the floats, masked, flinging beads, stuffed animals, cups and doubloons into the crowds, picking their spots, choosing who to throw to, cheering and egging on the crowd.

Now I know they are people just like you and me, except for a couple hours on one day a year they get to live like a king.

Float loading “den”, New Orleans, LA

But I hadn’t even begun to think what they had to do to prepare.

And I still don’t. As a rookie to the experience, I’m being eased in. I’m being told to “pace myself” and to not do anything stupid during the parade. I’ve been told what to buy in preparation and taken around by friends to the places to buy beads, throws, plushes and specials. Everyone has been tremendously helpful and open in showing me how the process works. And, hopefully I’ll get the chance to pay it forward in years to come.

But that’s it. I know where to buy beads, I know how to load a float. I’m slowly picking up the history, how krewes are formed, how the themes are created, how everything comes together. But there is still a wealth of unknown-unknowns ready for me to dig into, a lot of questions to ask and a lot to learn.

After Wednesday I’ll have a lot more to share

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I’m riding in Krewe of Druids on Wednesday night. The parade starts at 6:30 in Uptown and follows this route; I’ll be on float #9, on the neutral ground side of the float, 3rd from the rear on the bottom section. Yell to me when I pass, and I’ll throw you something…