Small town Mardi Gras

Since my last post I have been to quite a few places but I was mostly staying in campgrounds without internet so I couldn't posts. I am right now somewhere with internet and the forecast is for rain in the next few days (I forget which days) so I am planning to catch up

Right now I am in a campground in Louisiana on the shore of the Mississippi River!!! A big one on my "bucket list". I am staying in a campground where I can see the Mississippi River from the camper. This morning I could watch the river as I was making my coffee. That was nice.
In an effort of being where I am and not just camping alone in the camper (which ultimately I can do anywhere) this evening I went to the local small town Mardi Gras Parade.

Mardi Gras is really a religious holidays which happens on ONE particular Tuesday ("Mardi" in French) the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. I have no idea what the name of this Tuesday is in English. Here it is celebrated from January 6th (the day the Kings reached the Nativity) and ends the last day before Lent (March 4th this year)....anyway, I went and I enjoyed it.

It was a small town celebration, family oriented and fun. As the floats drive by they throw stuff to the crowd, mostly bead necklaces. In fact most people showed up with bags to carry all the stuff they caught. I didn't have a bag. At first I didn't even know why people had bags. But I got into the spirit of things thanks to the woman next to me on the side of the road who was right into it, and I caught MANY beads and put them around my neck. I know I normally never put photos of myself on the blog but here is one anyway, at the same time you can see how my hair is doing (yes, it is curly, and no it isn't a perm, and no it doesn't quite stand that way usually, it was windy. This is a year and 5 months of growth...a year and five months...time flies... It seems like yesterday...It seems like a life time ago)

You can see I had A LOT of beads. In fact as I was walking back to the truck one kid commented and said "Now, this is beads".
And here is a random kid also with beads...he was having trouble moving around, it was quite fun to watch... I did ask his parents before taking the photo.