Woke up to another sunny and hot day. Walked to our cafe and had toast and coffee. The coffee is so good. It’s strong, but not bitter. I usually find American coffee weak and somewhat like coloured water, but this stuff is delicious. Maybe it’s the chicory? It wakes you up, that’s for sure.
We walked over to the convention centre for Day 2 of Barrett-Jackson, and the line up for Hot Laps was really long. I’m so glad we went yesterday and didn’t have to stand in that hot sun today. Since it was still early, and the actual auction of cars starts at noon, we decided to go to Mardi Gras World, well, Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World to be precise. It was somewhere I had really wanted to go to, and it was so close and the timing was perfect.
It’s right around the corner from the convention center, so a quick walk, except remember yesterday when I said the centre is over a kilometre long? Walking in the hot sun made it seem like it was 5 kilometres long, and this is at nine in the morning. *whew*. Good thing there is an air conditioned gift shop to wait in, we were on the verge of heatstroke. When I read about it online, it said that “at this time, it was a self-guided tour”, which I was ok with because really, who wants to be shuffled along with a bunch of strangers? Not me. But, I guess things changed since the website was updated because it was indeed a guided tour, and as usual I was wrong in thinking I wouldn’t like it. There was only about 8 of us anyhow and the guide was extraordinary.
We watched a short video as well as sampled some King cake which was delicious. King cake used to be made by specific bakeries only, and only during Mardi Gras. However Covid ended up causing these bakeries to lose extreme amounts of revenue, so the decision was made to allow it to be made throughout the year. There is always a baby inside each cake, and if you get the baby then you are Queen (or King) of the parade. Thank god I didn’t get it and end up choking and/or having to do something public. Or choking in public.
Our guide talked about some of the myths and misconceptions about Mardi Gras in general, and then we walked on a guided tour through the warehouse, and it was spectacular, so much colour and creativity, it was quite mind-boggling, the size of some of these floats!
It’s a 300,000 sq ft working warehouse where they build new the floats, store old floats and repair broken floats. I can’t imagine being there alone at night!
Blaine Kern and his family have been making the floats since 1947, and they make them not only for Mardi Gras but also for Macy’s parade, the Rose Bowl, Carnivale in Brazil and many other parades. I had no idea. There are very strict rules too, about which Krewe can have which floats, and what theme they can use, and no repeats from year to year.
Here are a few of my favourite pictures.
There is also a robot now that makes some of the styrofoam parts, her name is Daisy. She can make the foam base of a new float in a few hours, as opposed to the few days it takes a human worker. It hasn’t affected any workers adversely, no lay-offs or anything, as they have so much work to do, and there is lots for both Daisy and her co-workers.
The floats range from modern (characters from present movies) to religious to everything in between.
After that we headed over to the auction, just in time for it to start. We ended up sitting beside a nice couple from Iowa, Todd & Colleen, and they were car collectors and fishermen (fisher people?) so they had a lot to discuss with Steven. They were especially interested in Toyota Landcruisers (which there were a LOT of in the auction) so I basically closed my ears to their talking and watched the cars go by.
Yesterday Steven had wanted a guide that listed all the vehicles for sale, we saw people with them, but couldn’t find any. We asked the fellow who was “the gatekeeper” at our little private area and he said they only sold them now, nothing is free anymore. He and Steven chatted for awhile and then today when we checked in, he gave Steven a free one. Honestly, he gets more free stuff from people…
The afternoon went really fast and before we knew it, it was 5 o’clock and over for the day. I didn’t want to walk around town with my garish clear plastic bag, so we went back to the hotel (and luckily found a shortcut that was along a shaded cobblestone street), and headed out for the evening.
People are so incredibly friendly here. Everyone says hello, and if you even stop for a even a second they want to know where you're from, what you’ve seen, what you think of their city, and they give you tips on where to go and what to do and it ends up being a 20 minute convo. Mr. Sociable loved it.
A fellow the other day told us that if we wanted good oysters then we needed to go to The Bourbon House on (obviously) Bourbon Street. So we ended up on Bourbon Street for the third night in a row.
Oh my god. I will dream of those oysters for the rest of my life. Huge oysters, covered with lump crab and cheese. Chargrilled. I could have eaten 2 dozen of them. There was an amazing loaf of bread to sop up the juices with as well. Mmmmm.
I also had a po’boy with bourbon sauce (how appropriate) and he had a giant burger. And bread pudding (a New Orleans staple) with caramel sauce for dessert. The whole meal was 10/10. Highly recommend if you are ever there.
When we finished eating we took another stroll through the streets and back to our hotel. It feels like a very safe city, I had heard a lot of danger and crime statistics prior to being there, however we felt completely comfortable. Even walking past homeless people and perhaps drug addicted people, they all politely said “good evening”. I mean granted, I wouldn’t walk down a back alley at 3 AM, but common sense is all you need here. Crime can happen anywhere anyhow.
As we were walking home and looking up at some of the amazing balconies, people were throwing beads at us. Fun.
Slept soundly once again.
No comments:
Post a Comment