Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

 

20. Visit at least 1 new city

37. Mardi Gras (why haven’t I thought of this before???)

Some of the things on my bucket list are time sensitive.  The kids were off of school last week, and I looked at the calendar.  I realized that if I was going to make it to Mardi Gras this year I had to do it NOW.  So I called up a friend, grabbed the kids, and headed to New Orleans.  Booked a hotel on Wednesday, left Thursday morning with my three kids (and no hubby, because it is tax season and there is NO WAY that he could take four days off work.)

Now, because this is how I work, instead of going to bed early Wednesday night to prepare for my trip, I instead made my kids a new wardrobe of Mardi Gras inspired shirts.  We just can't go somewhere without appropriate wear.  Once I was happy that I had six new t-shirts made we got the car packed and ready to leave.

The drive was long, but uneventful (unless you count the fact that I was going 15 miles OVER the speed limit in New Orleans, and was being passed on both sides,) and I got checked into our hotel.  At the last minute we managed to book a 2 bedroom/kitchenette suite for me, my kids, my friend Alecia, and her 2 kids.  It was close to everything, and was huge and clean for the price. She got there a few hours after we did, and we got the kids to bed so that we could go exploring the next morning.

We got the kids up and headed into the French Quarter to look around.  We parked our car in a little lot manned by a big man named "Robin" ( and when I say we parked, I mean he squished our car between two others, with a little more than 2 inches between them,)  and we started in to look at the sights.

If you have never been to the French Quarter at 8:30 in the morning, you are missing a very strange and pungent odor.  I would say that it is probably a combination of urine and puke.  They were just beginning to hose down the streets, so we were lucky enough to get a good whiff BEFORE it was washed away. 

From there we did lots of touristy things...took a mule and buggy tour, ate Muffellatas, toured the Catherdral, took a ride on a ferry boat, and caught a parade (my favorite- Krewe of Cork- all about WINE!)  Keeping up with the kids was a bit nervewracking, but I was proud of myself, I did make it all the way to 1:09 pm before I got a drink somewhere. Then we went back to Robin to get the car.

When we got to the lot there were 3 cars perpendicular to ours, blocking us in.  Robin told us "no problem," he would move them.  So the kids wouldn't get run over we made them get in our car.  Robin moved one of the cars and looked expectantly at us.  Alecia quickly told him, "You are going to have to get the car out.  It is too close for me still."  He got in and started to pull the car around the black Honda that he didn't think was neccessary to move. As he started to cut around the car, the Honda moved forward.  Guess it was too close for him too- he had hit the back bumper of the Honda with the side of Alecia's car.  We ran over and looked at the nice big black scrape down the side of her white van.  She started rubbing it, and luckily it rubbed off.  However, this was not the case for the white scrape on the black Honda.  Robin said "Don't worry about the Honda" and pulled the car the rest of the way around it.

 Alecia and I got in the car to leave, and one of the kids said,"Ummm, Robin said A LOT of bad words.  He said the 'sh' word, the 'h' word, and randomly threw in the 'F' word."  I rolled down the window and thanked Robin for teaching them new words, but I couldn't stop laughing because, my gosh, we were in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, and my kids learned bad words in the car of all places?  Seemed funny!  And then I thought, we let a random stranger in the car with them?  Great parents.

I could go on and on about the trip.....we saw many parades, met up with Maggie's 2 favorite teens- our babysitter Heather, and our cousin Jamie.  We got tons of beads, and ate local food.  I made in an hour later the second day before ordering a drink (that was SO strong that two of us couldn't even finish it.) It was a great experience, and I was SO glad we got to go.  Thanks so much Mandy for suggesting the trip.  Thanks Shannon for all of the advice.  Thanks Alecia for picking up at a moment's notice and meeting me there.  Thanks Nancy and Jefry for playing with and feeding my dog.  And thank you Jamie, for working so hard so that we could go, even though you couldn't. 

Here are some random pictures from the trip:

Jamie and I are planning an adult only trip back there soon- New Orleans is such a neat town that I would love to explore it more :)