THE BEST RIDE
This year’s ride was one of the best I’ve had.
The weather was perfection and I had one of my nieces riding with me. Sure, the route was shorter this year but my husband still met us on the street as we rode up Tchoupitoulas Street to the line-up. And I found a lot of faces in the crowd—something I miss a lot of the time—and we got to enjoy our floats in the parking lot with our fellow riders!
People keep saying we missed Mardi Gras for two years, but in fact it was just one. We started working on this parade right after we rode in 2020, but a few months into that process we had to shelve all the float designs for obvious reasons. And by then all our throws were ordered and would go into storage to wait out Covid.
Now here’s where I should mention that all this work is mostly volunteer. Float designs, managing our den, managing our outreach and charity events, bead distribution and so much more—all volunteered woman-hours by Krewe members. Then add on top of that the coordination! Between the float builders, painters, prop makers, parking lot attendants, tractor drivers, police, medics and fire department, these parades are no small feat. And nothing you can just throw together. But by fall of 2021 we were all back at work and so very happy to be there.
And that’s why this was one of my best rides. For almost two years we’d been adapting our lives around Covid restrictions. We took our shots and wore our masks, but this parade was by far the best medicine for the pandemic. At least for me. To see the smiles on peoples’ faces —to see faces in general—just about brought tears to my eyes. New Orleans did a great job celebrating carnival with no parades in 2021, but there is nothing like being in the streets celebrating life with everyone else who is doing the same.
Here’s a tour of the floats for 2022
