Cold Spaghetti

Friday evening, we headed out into the fray early (or so we thought)… and were on the neutral ground by 4:45. Apparently, every person with a ladder within a 300 mile radius had been there sooner and set up their ladders supplied with taser devices to ensure on one infringe upon the PUBLIC space surrounding their ladder by several feet. Some even set up huge caution tape lines. One of the best parts about Mardi Gras is the camaraderie in the lines; folks sharing food, throws, and jokes.
Luckily, Ana spotted us crawling up and down Napoleon and we joined her and their friends, who had the good sense to bring several chairs. Ana (above) settled into our ladder seat with Will. After a few minutes, though, Will flipped out over being up in the ladder (as would be a theme for the rest of the holiday). His spirit was bolstered, however, when he discovered the delights of Doritos in a bag shared by Emmy. It was love at first sight; Will hasn’t quite been the same since.

In the meantime, as dusk settled in, I went to town trying out different techniques to capture the floats as the riders took their places, prepped their throws, and night began to fall. Normally, this would be a flash situation: I increased shutter speed, increased ISO, and played around with exposure to get these shots.
In my opinion, Hermes has the most beautiful floats. The parade “starts” a few blocks from where we were, so we sat at in the staging area of the parade. It was a great place to start the night. Watching them slowly light up as the sun set was almost magical.

(Note: see the caution tape below? For some reason, this seemed endemic this Mardi Gras. What is up, people?)

Ana stayed up on high (that girl is afraid of NOTHING) and chatted to me while I snapped away.
She even offered me a few of her wake-me-up-with-a-bang! flavored Zapp’s chips. That’s Ana, keeping the NOLA Mardi Gras spirit alive!

Hermes was the only parade we saw. At the start of D’Etat (always one of our favorites), it became clear that Kate *had a diaper*. It could not be fixed… the girl was a mess from head to toe. Will was still being freaked out by everything (the flambeau, usually a favorite, was freaking him out, too), and it was getting colder and later. We went home. It had been a big day. It was a good idea; we were much better positioned for Saturday. (Except for Kate, who we realized was unequivocally ill.) Will and I were the only ones to attend parades on Saturday.