MARTI GRAS Change Up!

This year, Derrick and I did something a little different for Marti Gras...we went to New Orleans, LA!!! Yes, the drive was long, and we were only there for one night, we still had a blast, and it was so worth it! Experiencing Marti Gras in New Orleans has been one thing I have always wanted to do, so now I can cross it off my list.

We left Friday night after work and drove to Jackson, Mississippi, and stayed in a Drury Inn. We slept in, had a really good breakfast, and got on the road. We arrived in New Orleans around 12:30, parked, and just started walking the way that the crowd was going. It felt like there were parades going on every way you looked. People on the floats just throw hand fulls on beads. The interesting thing about the beads - they are not little beads, they are really big good beads! It's always that some people just stuff them in these really big bags to take home.

Going over the long bridge into New Orleans! The weather was great, a high of 55, it was perfect!

Watching a parade!

We walked on the streets, went into little art galleries and shoppes, and went into little bars. We met some really nice people, which was helpful because they told us where to go, and what to stay away from. We even met one guy who knew Derrick's sister, small world.

Having fun on Bourbon Street!!!

There were lots of mimes!!

Around 6p, we were ready to grab something to eat. The guy we met told us to go to Oceana, a little restaurant in the French Quarter. Surprisingly, we walked right in and sat down. (I was really worried that getting drinks and food would be hard, but it was the complete opposite.) We had some awesome oysters as an appetizer. Derrick had the Taste of New Orleans, and I had the catfish poor boy, and it was all wonderful, good authentic New Orleans food!

Into the night, Bourbon St. started to get extremely crowded, and no one stops partying. You have to keep up. We went into a couple more bars, and hung out on the street a lot of the time. It's so fun to just watch people.

We had a great time on our short, but fun weekend. If you were wondering, we did sleep in our Jeep...ha ha ha, it was really comfortable and totally worth it! I knew we bought that jeep for a reason!

The drive home on Sunday was rather long. We hit really bad weather 50 miles outside Cape Girardeau. We also had to go straight to the airport to pick up Derrick's parents, we didn't make it home until 11:15p, and we left New Orleans at 10a. We did take naps, and alternate driving so it wasn't too bad. Since we didn't get to celebrate Valentines Day yesterday, we are going to do something tonight!