Fat Tuesday in Lafayette

After exploring and celebrating the culture of Acadiana for four days, we made it to the final day of the Carnival season.  The culmination of a month of revelry is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. The French translation for Mardi Gras is actually "Fat Tuesday."  There were several small towns with celebrations, but Betty recommended that we make the thirty minute drive to Louisiana's fourth largest city--Lafayette.  We were up early, following Betty's directions to get us around the streets closed for the 5-mile parade route.  We were there early enough to walk to the very beginning of the route for the first of the three Mardi Gras parades of the day. So we were some of the first to see King Gabriel's float starting the parade.

There were also lots of high school bands entertaining the crowd with a combination of music that included more dancing than marching.

But the main attraction of this first parade of the day was the decorated floats with a dozen riders that kept a continuous flow of beads in the air.  Denisa is proud to say that she managed to catch both of these necklaces that were coming her way--one in each hand.

All of these floats had a super hero theme, but the crowds were more interested in beads than in heroes today.

We chose to spend Fat Tuesday in Lafayette because of its family-friendly reputation. Unlike New Orleans, it is actually illegal to reveal body parts to get beads.  We found the crowds of families got bigger as we walked the parade route.  There were thousands of people lining both sides of the street on the entire route.

It seemed that most of the locals brought their own food, complete with cookers and ice chests on the side of the street.  There were few food vendors, but we found one that we really liked.  This picture shows our first tasty treat--an Ultimate Mac Dawg. Quoted from their sign, that would include a "beef frank topped with grilled onion, jalapeno, Rajun Kajun mac and cheese, cream sauce with andoville tasso". Yum! It was so good that we made a return trip to their truck later for their homemade Creole gumbo. It was a successful food day!

This first parade started at 10:00, and we found that we could walk the parade route faster than the floats traveled the same route. At times the floats came to a complete stop for 15 minutes at a time. We never did find out what caused the long pauses.  Here is another picture of Denisa, catching another strand of green beads in her upraised hand.

The traditional colors of Mardi Gras are purple, green, and gold. So Denisa had quite a collection of those colored necklaces by the end of the first parade.

She talked Mark into wearing the other colored beads, so he ended up with a more patriotic look.

The last float finally reached our spot in the middle of the parade route, so we stopped by the car to leave our beads and take all the weight off our necks.  We ate a healthy snack of fruit, then decided to meander on down the rest of the five-mile parade route to see more of the city of Lafayette.  We stopped to listen to a zydeco band playing music for the crowd.

The parade terminates at Cajun Field, so we decided to walk the two miles to see the carnival that was set up there.  We were surprised to catch up with the parade floats--still throwing beads--as we got to Cajun Field!  It was now 3.5 hours after the parade started that morning 5 miles away.

We even walked to the parking lot behind Cajun Field where all the floats were lined up.  We talked to a couple of the men that had ridden on those floats, and their arms were already sore from throwing beads for over three hours.  They explained that they buy the necklaces by the pound, and they had bought $1,200 in beads for the parade this year.  Parades are expensive, as there is also the expense of storing these floats in an indoor facility until they are re-used next year.

By the time we walked back to our spot, the second parade of the day had started.  Instead of super heroes and comic book figures, this parade featured the royalty from different organizations. Mostly children on the floats this time, there were less beads.

Instead of high school marching bands, there were long lines of dance troupes from area dance studios.  We also saw our first Mardi Gras Indians--decked out in elaborate costumes.

As the day progressed, the crowds increased.  There were thousands of people lining both sides of the street for those five miles.  The temperature also climbed into a beautiful blue sky day where we no longer needed our jackets.

The firetruck signaling the end of the second parade, was right in front of the police cars ushering in the third parade.

This one featured more merchants, throwing stuffed animals, frisbees, cups, koozies, hula hoops, souvenir coins, and of course--beads.

By the end of the third parade, Denisa had another nice collection of beads around her neck. Knowing that we had left the morning's beads in the cars, we obviously had a lot of fun catching necklaces today!

As people filed out of the streets, they left behind a sea of broken beads on the pavement.  We found that the necklaces usually break on impact if they aren't caught in the air.

We also were sad to see the mess that was left behind. All along the curb were the empty bead bags and other trash that people had thoughtlessly dropped in the street.

People weren't the only things flaunting beads.  The trees along the parade route were also covered with necklaces.

After walking ten miles up and back down the parade route, we had just enough energy to walk the loop around the campus of the University of Louisiana Lafayette.  The only university campus that includes a swamp, it is also home to several alligators.  One of the coeds told us that the alligators were usually on the far side of the swamp, so we walked the entire loop.  No alligator pictures today--just a Ragin' Cajun with his beads. We have now experienced our first Mardi Gras, and it was definitely a successful Fat Tuesday.