Mardi Gras and the Garden District

After a wonderful oatmeal breakfast at Chez Griswold, we were off to take a tour of Mardi Gras World. It was quite the experience learning about Mardi Gras and seeing the floats and other sculptures used in former parades. We watched an informative film giving us the history of the parade and the company that makes the floats....the Bruce Kern Comoany creates all the floats for this and other parades throughout the world. One of the methods used for the sculptures is carving the images out of styrofoam, then applying paper mache, and finally applying paint. The use of styrofoam allows the artist to reuse and reform sculptures for the next parade. Can you say "recycling"! The fun part for us was actually watching some of the artists working on sculptures for the next parade. Each year there is a different theme and it is usually a secret so everyone attending can be surprised. The next walking tour we took was a tour of The Lafayette Cemetary and homes in the Garden District. We had a great tour guide, Matthew, who was very entertaining! This area of New Orleans was primarily settled by New Englanders. We learned that the burial of the deceased had to be above ground because of the water table...One burial vault could hold numerous family members since after decomposition, they remove the remains and place it at the bottom of the vault....the pine coffin is burned and now there is available space for another person.....wow....can you imagine? Talk about conservation and recycling. This burial process is still being used today. The garden district was just amazing with different style homes boasting of decorative wrought iron fencing, old horse hitching posts, and balconies. Some notables who own homes here are John Goodman, Sandra Bullock, and the parents of Peyton and Eli Manning. After a long day of walking, we felt we deserved another fabulous dinner in the French Quarter. We made reservations at a restaurant called Kingfish, a true Cajun and Creole experience. We dined on hush puppies, gumbo, frog more stew, catfish, and jambalaya. The food was terrific and am glad to say that I was able to bring some Frog more stew shrimp home with me! Each day gets better and better!