After arriving on Valujet (not such a bad airline overall), we met Brenda and Bob at our hotel, the luxurious Days Inn on Canal Street.

Our first Mardi Gras and New Orleans experience was soon to follow. We took a walk along Bourbon street and got our first taste of tantalizing beads dangling from balconies, and saw our first, and definately not last, set of breasts.

In New Orleans tradition, we at mufelletas for lunch--love those olives.

That night, we cornered some fence space along St. Charles to watch Hermes. Being there early enough for fence space can be a curse, though. We protected our turf for several hours, through bitter cold and freezing rain. But, our reward was forthcoming when Hermes finally rolled around the corner, and we all came away draped in white beads.

After dinner (Jumbalaya, of course), we moved to bourbon street at night--what a crowded sight. We no longer had to worry about the cold...wall to wall bodies took care of that.

After enough of the crowds and the bare flesh and the beads and the neck pain from staring up all night, we retired to our room.

After sleeping off a nagging cold (must've been all that rain and the lack of warm clothes....), I and the others managed to climb out of bed in by late morning.

We decided to set our sights on the Endymion parade starting at 5pm. After some good 'Nawlins food (at some small restuarant I can't remember the name of), we started walking.

During our long, long, long walk, we encountered Tucks. What a bizzare krewe! We did get some medallions and other beads. But the rest of the paraphanalia was just weird...big plastic cigars??? toilet paper with Tucks on it? floats consisting of really big toilets? How very very odd.

Well, now that we're in the "bad" part of town, we thought we'd stop off for some food. after some debate, we decided to take a side street. We found the Wendy's far too crowded and opted for a coffee shop. We snacked on pie and relaxed our tired feet.

we managed to get back to our hotel in time to see Endymion which, miracle of miracle, went right by our hotel. That was definately enjoyable...close bathroom, and we didn't have to walk and walk before being able to finally rest our feet.

We got lots of beads and discovered that its definately better to be at a sight with no barriers than to grab and guard fence space for hours. Thus, we ended up walking right up to the floats, and girls on guys shoulders have a definate advantage. We used that tactic until the guys were tired out...good thing the hotel was right there!

Dinner consisted of great Nawlins food. I had some sort of sausage which I can't remember the name of. We walked about on Bourbon a bit more before climbing into bed.