Even though we had planned to only see two parades on Fat Tuesday, we ended up seeing three instead, purely by accident of timing. We had left the campground a bit early to find a parking space before things got completely crazy. Turns out we managed to get parked and start walking to where we were planning to watch the parades just in time to catch the beginning of the combined Knights of Revelry, King Felix III, and Comic Cowboys parade that started at 12:30pm. So of course we joined the fun and craziness and almost immediately started getting pelted with beads and other throws from the Knights of Revelry.

We also admired the elaborate costumes of King Felix III and his Queen, and had a complete blast laughing our butts off at the signs on the Comic Cowboys floats. See, the Comic Cowboys are known for poking fun at local, state, and national news items and other current events with “billboards” on each of their floats. Of course the local ones we didn’t quite understand too often, but the national and current events ones had us in stitches. All told, we had a great time attending a set of parades we hadn’t even planned on watching.

After that was done, we were able to relax a bit and nibble a couple of the moon pies we had caught while waiting for the 2pm MAMGA Mammoth Parade to come by. At about 3:15pm, we could finally see and hear the parade making its way down the street. While the floats and marching bands weren’t bad, we honestly weren’t as impressed with this parade as we thought we’d be, especially since the information we had said “barrages of throws” and “a real favorite of many revelers”. It appeared that most of the float riders were tossing their throws only to certain groups of people in the crowd, almost completely ignoring the rest. So we barely managed to catch about a dozen strands of beads, a few moon pies, and a couple other snack cakes, while a lot of the targeted groups in the crowd walked away after the parade with their bags overflowing with items. This is one parade we will skip if we ever return to Mobile for Mardi Gras.

The final parade of Fat Tuesday had a much smaller crowd than the earlier parades, since a lot of the people targeted by MAMGA had taken their loot and gone home. When we saw such a large portion of the crowd leaving instead of hanging around for the last parade, we honestly wondered how bad the parade would be and if we should head home too. So we were very pleasantly surprised when darkness fell and Order of Myths came down the street. Beads and other items flew through the air in a small storm, and the floats – depicting various festivals and holidays from around the world – were very interesting to look at as they rolled by. We didn’t catch quite as many throws as we did from the set of parades that we hadn’t planned on attending, but the history and detail that was evident in the floats of Mobile’s the oldest continuous Mardi Gras parading group more than made up for it. Too bad a lot of the crowd didn’t stick around to appreciate that history.

All in all, we had an absolute blast attending the festivities surrounding our first-ever Mardi Gras, and now it’s a day for relaxing before we pack up and move the RV to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and the beachfront RV park that’s part of the Silver Slipper Casino.

Right after our last blog post, we headed out of the campground to go to an early dinner before attending our first-ever Mardi Gras parade. Dinner was at Wintzell’s Oyster House, a place known far and wide for their fresh Gulf seafood and their slogan of “Oysters—fried, stewed or nude.” Dinner was very good, and I definitely enjoyed the happy hour special of a dozen raw oysters for half price. And then it was time to go find a spot to watch the parade.

Since this was the first time either of us had attended a Mardi Gras parade, and neither one of us had been in downtown Mobile before, I had researched good places from which to watch the parades. We found a nice spot on Government Street near Claibourne, across from the Mobile Carnival Museum. What makes this a good spot is you actually get to see the parade pass by twice – once headed up Government Street and once headed back down Government as it returns to the Civic Center. We parked ourselves behind the barricades and waited as the crowd grew and darkness fell. The police finally diverted the last bits of vehicle traffic and chased the wandering vendors out of the way and then it was parade time!

This parade was by Order of Inca, a group that’s been participating in Mobile’s Mardi Gras celebrations since they formed in 1956 (although they’ve only been parading since 1975). We, like the rest of the crowd around us, raised our arms in the air and started yelling, trying to attract the attention of the masked men on horseback – the parade marshals, not the Lone Ranger – and on the floats, hoping they would toss beads and other Mardi Gras “throws” our way. Within only a couple floats, we had both caught our first strand of beads and were grinning like fools. By the time the parade was finished, we had caught nearly 4 pounds of beads, a marshal’s pendant, 3 doubloons, a couple of moon pies (a Mobile Mardi Gras staple), a bag of peanuts, & a nerf-style football. We were hooked.

The next parade we attended was a “day parade” the following afternoon, held by the Mobile Mystics and the Mobile Mystical Revelers. We honestly weren’t as impressed with this parade, or with the crowd attending it. Because the Mobile Mystics are known to be heavy throwers, the crowd was much more pushy and grabby, and we seemed to spend as much time “defending our turf” along the barricade as we did actually trying to catch the throws. We left that parade with 3 more pounds of beads, 2 plastic cups, a moon pie, another bag of peanuts, and a couple pieces of candy.

For the rest of the week, we took a break from Mardi Gras activities and went to a couple other area attractions. The first was Bellingrath Gardens and Home, just a bit down the street from the RV park where we were staying. Purchased in 1917 by Walter Bellingrath, Mobile’s first Coca-Cola bottler, and his wife Bessie, what was formerly an abandoned fishing camp became, within 18 years, an absolutely lovely 15-room brick home and acres upon acres of lush gardens with something always in bloom year-round. The period furniture, porcelains, silver, and crystal collected by Mrs. Bellingrath before her untimely death in 1943 which are on display inside the home were every bit as stunning and beautiful as the camellias and other flowers outside that were currently blossoming. Words cannot do justice to this place, and we fully intend to return sometime in the future.

The other area attraction we visited was Battleship Memorial Park, home of the battleship USS Alabama, the submarine USS Drum, a couple dozen military aircraft displayed both indoors and out, a handful of various tanks and other military equipment, and several memorials. Because it was a cold and windy day, we followed only two of the three self-guided tours of the USS Alabama, but were still impressed enough to spend almost 2.5 hours onboard her instead of the 30 minutes per tour that the visitor’s guide suggested. The submarine’s tour was much more straightforward – it is a submarine, after all, with only one deck to tour. The aircraft pavilion was fairly small but still interesting, and even has an A-12 Blackbird, the CIA’s precursor to the Air Force’s SR-71, on display.  On our way back to our truck, we visited the various memorials off to the side of the property to pay our respects to the soldiers (including one for war dogs) and civilians that they honor. The park as a whole was a very compelling attraction and we wish it had been warmer so we could have enjoyed it more thoroughly.

 

Saturday night was our return to the Mardi Gras revelry, and we attended the night parade organized by the Mystics of Time. This is a very popular parade in Mobile, with over 100k people attending each year. This year seemed to be no exception despite the chilly weather and we could see why. The floats were phenomenal, the fire- and smoke-breathing dragons were amazing and the throws flew so thickly through the air that you would have had to be half-dead to not catch something. At the conclusion of the parade, we had snagged a total of 6 pounds of beads, 3 cups, a couple moon pies, 4 doubloons (one of them from the “Queen’s Guard”), a mini football, a pixie stick, 3 glow stick necklaces, and a squeaky (or is it oinky?) pig dog toy.

Sunday was Super Bowl 50 and although we seriously considered it, we decided not to attend the Joe Cain Procession, often considered to be one of the best in Mobile, because we were afraid we might not get back to our RV in time for kickoff. After witnessing how the boring the game and the commercials were this year, we probably should have gone to the parade after all. But hey, we still have Fat Tuesday itself to enjoy, and we’ll be seeing not one but two parades that day – the 2pm MAMGA Mammoth Parade and the 6pm parade by Order of Myths (the oldest continuous Mardi Gras parading group in Mobile). We’ll probably have so many beads weighing us down that we won’t be able to move!