Krewe de la Dauphine

Under the cover of darkness on Friday night, the Gardner advance team (consisting of Nancy) snuck onto Dauphin Island to stake our claim. It was a move that would've made any Boomer Sooner proud, as she managed to stake out a prime piece of real estate. It was near the porta-potty but not near enough to be afflicted by the post parade aromas while it still allowed us to park four cars, the grill, table, assorted coolers, chairs, and still allow the kiddos to have a place to frolic while waiting for the glorious strains of the boom-boom to reach our ears. You may think I am exaggerating but behold the splendor -

From Krewe de la Dauphine

Saturday in Mobile dawned grey and humid and frankly, I was having my doubts about this whole DI parade in a possible deluge, but the pigs had already been blanketed so we grabbed Katherine and set out on our adventure. I am pleased to report that almost all of the pigs in a blanket made it down to the Island though I had been threatening that if we ended up stopped on the bridge due to traffic, it was the pigs or one of my fellow passengers! When we got down the Island it was actually quite sunny and thank goodness we saved our appetites as there was an incredible spread and grill master Frank had Conecuh Sausage going on the grill to hold us over until the parade started.

Since this was my first Dauphin Island experience I confess I really wasn't sure what to expect but I was quite pleased to see that my fellow revelers were prepared, as always, with not only a fantastic spread of edible delights (Nancy what was in that fabulous dip you made?) but with a bag of porta potty necessities. (We never discussed the "bag" but we were all quite glad that someone had the good sense to bring it I assure you.) The parade in itself was actually far more organized than I anticipated - the theme was Signs of the Times and most of the floats followed the theme, for example the 80's float had a big Rubix cube and Pac-Man chasing Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde down the side. Though I found one or two baffling - the Born to Ride float?

From Krewe de la Dauphine

After the official parade was over we watched an endless line of traffic and one of the more resourceful offspring (one that Jack had borrowed for the day not one of "ours") actually started working on the passengers in the cars to get more beads! We met a vile little Chihuahua whose owner readily held it out to feast on eager young hands that wanted to pet it. (No worries, no fingers were sacrificed to the foul creature, the adults arrived in time.)

Since our car load of folks was parked on a side road, we made a break for it early and got back just in time to marvel at the after math of the apparent monsoon that had occurred in Mobile just in time for some Senior Bowl tailgating!

All in all, I'd say the trial run was a smashing success!

You can see all the pictures with my random comments here!

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

Since I have joined this merry band of revelers Mary Lane was sending out her email updates and I used to tease her because she said she was "blogging" so I decided to start a good and proper blog so that the events of Mardi Gras 2009 can be documented for all time! Here goes nothing...