Happy Mardi Gras!

Today is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. For the last month there have been parades in the streets because they started weeks ago. It is not just a one day affair there, the party started a long time ago. And since I am not there I thought I would share with you some of my favorite pictures of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. This is the French Market. If you have been to the Crescent City you have likely been here. You can find just about anything here from hot sauces to luggage to baby alligator heads to feather boas and Mardi Gras masks. Loved it!

This is Lafreniere Park located in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. I lived a couple of blocks from here and enjoyed this park often. It has a bird sanctuary, paddle boats, a two-mile track for exercise and a carousel to ride on. I busted a tire driving through the park one day. Lucky for me a park worker helped me change the flat.

This is Jackson Square that is in the French Quarter probably one of the most famous sites of New Orleans.

I loved the trees there. This particular tree is in City Park. It is a park equivalent to the size of Central Park in New York City. We don’t have trees like this in Utah so to look at them is overwhelming to me. They are so beautiful how the branches just flow to the ground and back up again.

The top photo is from Lake Lawn Cemetery in New Orleans. More than once my friends would go here to have lunch. It sounds crazy but it is one of the most beautiful places in the city. It is so big that we would get lost trying to drive out. The bottom photo was taken at a cemetery in Harvey on the West Bank. It wasn’t a pretty as Lake Lawn but I do like this picture. Utah doesn’t receive rain the clouds just spit on us. New Orleans has rain. The picture is blurry because you couldn’t see that good out of the car. The roads flooded often when there was a good rain. I think that it took about two hours for the street to flood to this point. We were a bit nervous because we were in a little car and didn’t know if we were going to flood the engine or not. It’s always an adventure.

One morning I was kneeling on the floor and I thought I saw something moving around. I looked away and then looked back and had the same thought. I thought that I was going crazy for a minute. I started searching and there it was, a baby lizard was crawling on my bag. I freaked out. It took us a few minutes to catch it but we finally did and set it free outside.

Remember in the movie Princess Bride when they spoke about the R.O.U.S.s? I think this is what they were talking about. This is a neutral rat. They are vegetarian rats but still it is a rat. It is the biggest freaking rat I have ever seen and they are everywhere.

Again, if you go to New Orleans you have not really visited the city until you have eaten a fluffy pillow covered with powdered sugar otherwise known as a beignet. My advice, don’t inhale when you take a bite. You will choke on the powdered sugar.

Southern grammar: y’all come pass a fun time.

I’ve shared this picture before but if we are going to talk about the Big Easy, I can’t ignore the business Slugs for Thugs. They will gladly take care of all of your gold teeth needs.

I took this picture south of New Orleans. The town is Jean Lafitte, Louisiana. From what I have heard this town was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. Hopefully it still looks like this.

But I have so many great memories of New Orleans that make it different and unique compared to any other place I have been; for example, the memory of the man peeing outside of the the bar Uncle Larry's, the smell, Old Metairie Road, the drive-thru liquor stores and daiquiri shops and so much more.

So, to all my friends and readers, have a very happy Mardi Gras and don’t eat too much King Cake.