Mardi Gras, especially in the U.S., has expanded to include most of the Carnival Season, which is the period from the Epiphany (January 6th) to Fat Tuesday. Carnival typically involves public celebrations or parades combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party. People often dress up or masquerade during the celebrations, which mark an overturning of daily life. A typical parade will consist of marching bands, dance troops and floats decorated to a specific theme. As the floats pass by, "krewe" members toss trinkets to the begging crowd.
Mardi Gras arrived in North America as a French Catholic tradition back in 1699. In 1703 French settlers in Mobile established the first organized Mardi Gras tradition in what was to become the United States. As the U.S. expanded its territory along the Gulf Coast, Mardi Gras came with it. Galveston officially celebrated its first Mardi Gras in 1867 and is now considered the largest Mardi Gras celebration in Texas. Everyone knows the largest Mardi Gras party in the U.S. takes place in New Orleans.
Our Mardi Gras started early on Saturday, February 22nd with a drive to the beginning of the Galveston Sea Wall. The first parade was to start at noon and proceed down Sea Wall Drive. Our current campground, Jamaica Beach RV Resort, was hosting an all-day cookout on the seawall along the parade route. We left about 10:00 a.m. to give us plenty of time to stake out front row seats. Here we are getting ready to leave Great White and bike the 3.5 miles into downtown with camp chairs flung over our backs.
Here is the Jamaica Beach RV Park crowd. See if you can find Dave in the mass of humanity. The park owners brought their motorhome down, pulling a trailer with an 8 foot long wood burning smoker grill. Apparently, this is the thing to do in Galveston. There were hundreds of RVs (and other vehicles), together with dozens and dozens of smokers and barbeques, all along Seawall Boulevard, and everyone was tailgating.
With loads of smoked pork, ribs, burgers and hot dogs, we were doing our best to consume as much fat as possible in anticipate for Lent. There were also plenty of sweets to wash it all down with.
At high noon, the sirens sounded and everyone took their places along the parade route in anticipation of scoring as much booty as possible. The goodies, or "throws," consist of necklaces of plastic beads, coins called doubloons which are stamped with krewes' logos and parade themes, and an array of plastic cups, toys, Frisbees, and figurines. All of this bling is bought and paid for by individual krewe members, some spending $800 to $2,500 on their throws.
This being our first Mardi Gras Parade, we were not sure what the etiquette was. As the first float passed, folks cut in front of us, pushed us aside and stepped on our toes. It didn't take long for us to realize, it is everyone for themselves.
By the time the next float approached, we were ready. Dave dropped back into a wide receiver position, scooping up the beads that flew over the heads of the front row. Kathy donned a large feathery mask and proceeded to charge the front line with elbows flairing - success! Here is Kathy showing off her booty. Dave's haul was equally impressive.
After the parade, we combined our booty and immediately knew we had a problem. We had scored way too many beads and there were more parades coming. We needed to lighten our load. Kathy sorted the beads, keeping a few of the more unique offerings and putting them in her backpack. We then donned the remaining beads and proceeded to bike down Seawall Boulevard tossing beads to all the kids tailgating with their parents.
Our destination was the Galveston Mardi Gras Entertainment District, a 10 block area of historic Galveston, where the serious partying takes place. After biking three miles, we actually caught up with the first parade as it wound its way up and down the narrow balconied streets of old town. Here we managed to gather even more beads as they were being tossed from both the floats and the balconies!
Between parades we quenched our thirst and snacked on balls of fried boudin (pronounced - boo-DAHN), a wonderfully scrumptious Cajun dish made with meat, rice, and seasonings. For those of you from Philadelphia, think scrapple, but with rice instead of corn meal. There were two stage venues set up for concerts. We listened to a great Houston artist, Will Makar, who performed some original songs, as well as covers of DMB, John Mayer, Jason Mraz.
Between sets, Dave decided to try to find the Ministry of Magic to check up on Harry and his friends. Here's Dave, crying in frustration, "I know the Ministry of Magic is here somewhere!"
The folks in Galveston take their Mardi Gras seriously. We spent most of the day watching the characters go by. We could probably do a whole blog on just the outfits we saw, but that is only one part of the story. However, we felt we should include at least one representative photos. Here is Dave's choice (I wonder why):
We watched another parade and gathered up more beads. This time, we gave the extra beads to all the little kids coming into the Entertainment District.
The ride back to 53rd Street was filled with the sights, sounds and smells of hundreds of groups enjoying their day at the beach. As we rejoined the crowd from our RV park, we could tell the smoker was in full swing. We feasted on more delicious pork ribs and pulled pork. We set up our chairs to wait for the 6:00 p.m. parade when we noticed the fog begin to roll in. Here is Dave kibitzing with some surrey bikers lamenting over the drastic change in the weather.
Luckily, the sprinkles passed before the parade arrived. While the rain kept the crowd down compared to the afternoon parade, it didn't dampen the enthusiasm of those that remained. After the first couple of floats passed, we soon found ourselves gathering more and more beads. A young mom with two little ones came up and asked if the kids could stand in front of us: they hadn't been able to get any beads yet, and frantic adults had kept stepping on them. A plan quickly formed - create a wall to protect the kids from the reach of greedy adults, and wave our arms and point our fingers and yell at the flingers on the floats to direct all the beads the kids' way.
By the time the parade was over, the two little ones could barely walk, they were covered in so many beads. We managed to keep a few good ones, including one particular favorite of Kathy's which is a string of tiny little beer mugs. (I wonder why.) We packed up our chairs, climbed on our bikes, and headed back toward Great White. It didn't take long before we left the downtown crowds behind us.
Our first Mardi Gras was a success. Eddie and George had a blast rollin' in the booty:
As they say down here - "Laisez les bons temps roulez!"
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