A bad idea that got worse...

Every once in a while we decide to go into New Orleans for fun and exploring around the city (safe parts!). Saturday night was such a night. So, we loaded up the kids and drove into the city.

There were many things that should have given us a clue that something was wrong, and in hindsight I can totally see it! But hindsight does you no good, now does it? As we were getting closer to the city, both Tom and I commented on how busy it seemed the traffic was. We blew it off on it being a Saturday night with really nice weather. We even saw large groups of people waiting to take the trolly downtown, which is also pretty rare. But we kept driving.

As we were coming down Canal St., the foot traffic was insanely heavy. Again, it must be this nice weather we are having! We went to park in our usual parking lot, but it was full! Hmmm...we've never had trouble parking there before, but there's another parking garage just a little ways down...we can park there! We finally found a parking spot all the way up on the 7th level, loaded up the kids in the stroller and headed down to the street. As we were leaving the parking garage, Tom and I both noticed how many out of town license plates there were. We will see some on occasion, but not as many as were there!

We decided to head towards Cafe Du Monde to get Beignets before we started exploring and looking for street performers. As we were headed down the street, it hit us! There must be a Mardi Gras Parade tonight! (Now, for those of you not in the know, Mardi Gras parades begin long before Mardi Gras, which is on February 24th this year. It's actually refered to the "season of Mardi Gras.") We have only been to parades in Houma, and those aren't so bad! Now we'll get to see a New Orleans parade!

Tom saw a police officer who was starting to block off traffic and he jogged over to verify that it was a parade. I didn't hear the conversation, but I did hear Tom's laughter. He jogged back and said "oh, yeah...it's a parade. And the officer was kind enough to let me know it was very ADULT in nature and always stirs up alot of controversy! And, it's coming this way!!" I wheeled the stroller right around and headed right back to the parking garage! (See what I mean by hindsight?!?)

When we got home I did go online to see what parade we had barely missed taking our children to! It was the Krewe du Vieux and I can't type their theme without blushing, so if you are that curious, google it!