House Floats – Garden District

In the search for fabulous and festive house floats, I’ve already covered Magazine Street, the Irish Channel, Mid-City and the Lower Garden District. New Orleans has been celebrating Mardi Gras in a safe, socially distanced way with City Park’s drive-thru Floats in the Oaks stationary parade and “Yardi Gras,” thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city decorated as parade floats. Krewe of House Floats promoted this safe parade concept, encouraging people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places as house floats, or go DIY, then register on their map. The effect is the city basically looks like a drive-thru parade.

House Floats – Lower Garden District

New Orleans has been celebrating Carnival in a safe, socially distanced way with City Park’s drive-thru Floats in the Oaks stationary parade and “Yardi Gras,” thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city decorated as parade floats. Krewe of House Floats, a grassroots organization promoting this safe parade concept, encouraged people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places as house floats, or go DIY, then register on their map.

I’ve already covered Magazine Street, the Irish Channel and Mid-City. The next neighborhood we meandered in search of Mardi Gras merriment was the Lower Garden District. I loved the giant tropical fish of the Realm of Poseidon house.

House Floats – Mid-City

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that New Orleans has been celebrating Carnival in a safe, socially distanced way. “Yardi Gras” has decorated thousands of homes and businesses as parade floats. Krewe of House Floats, a grassroots organization promoting this new parade concept, encouraged people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places as house floats, or go DIY, then register on their map. After we’d experienced City Park’s drive-thru Floats in the Oaks stationary parade, we drove around neighboring Mid-City with that map and spotted amazing displays.

Some neighborhoods have chosen themes and we drove many streets celebrating with variations on “how sweet it is to be loved bayou.”

Floats in the Oaks

COVID may have cancelled our Mardi Gras parades but New Orleans City Park has created a drive-thru parade – Floats in the Oaks – a safe way to see the floats, keep our spirits up, and relive some memories. City Park has gone to some length to recreate the parade experience – starting with circling spotlights, and a bead thrown through your open window as you show your ticket. There were unattended flambeaux poles burning and ladders strewn with beads lining the road. One area’s trees were covered in toilet paper, reminding us all of the Krewe of Tucks parade.

Floats in the Oaks & the Pussyfooters!

I got to dance in a parade! Sort of. Because of COVID, the city has had to be clever about how to have a parade experience without creating a super spreader event.  New Orleanians have decorated thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city (and the country and even the world!) as “House Floats” to celebrate “Yardi Gras” – a stationary parade. City Park went literal with the concept – lining it’s winding roads with floats from nearly every Krewe that would normally roll so people can drive through the parade – Floats in the Oaks.

The Pussyfooters, a dance krewe of over 100 women over-30, have been invited to join for both weeks of Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Other dancers and bands will be appearing as well throughout the 2-week schedule. Thursday was opening night and I was pretty excited to finally be putting on my pink wig and corset.

Voodoo Fest, Costumes, Treme, Saints and Sinners

It’s Halloween season and in NOLA, that means costumes and Voodoo Fest. The festival features more rock, metal, rap and experimental music so I haven’t made it to Voodoo yet but I couldn’t miss Los Angles band, Vintage Trouble. The band has only been around a couple of years but they’ve already opened for acts like Bon Jovi and KISS and are set to open for The Who’s upcoming tour. Though I’ve known drummer Richard Danielson for over a decade, this is only the second time I’ve gotten to see the band live (the first being their “Big Dance” NOLA debut last April during the NCAA Final 4).

NOLA in a Week (Mom’s Visit)

There’s nothing like having a visitor to push you to take advantage of the city as much as possible in a week. My mom  and stepdad came to town and we went to 2 festivals, a number of concerts, a bunch of restaurants and plenty of cool shops. We even visited the set of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. If you’re planning to visit New Orleans or if you’re a New Orleanian looking for some ideas of how to entertain your guests, here are some highlights from our week.

Congo Square, Roadfood Fest, Mardi Gras Indians and Rebirth at d.b.a.

What a perfect weekend! March madness has begun and festival season is in full swing. Saturday was marked by perfect weather. It was warm and sunny with a constant balmy breeze. City Park hosted Hogs for the Cause, an all-day music fest benefitting children with brain cancer. We decided, instead, to stay in the French Quarter which was was hopping with activity. It was NOLA Pyrate Week  so, occasionally, you ended up waiting in line behind someone dressed as a pirate or seated next to a table full of them. We also crossed paths with a gathering group of hoop-skirted young ladies preparing for the Spring Fiesta parade.

Threadhead Thursday 2011

Yesterday, it was time once again to head to City Park’s beautiful Botanical Garden for Threadhead Thursday produced by Threadhead Records. Threadhead Records helps Katrina-affected musicians by loaning artists money to produce a CD. The artist pays back the loan within 6 months (and the money is returned to the investor-fans) along with a 5% donation to the Threadhead Records Foundation or other recognized charities benefitting local musicians and 5% to cover expenses. It’s a win-win situation resulting in amazing music.

L.A. to N.O.LA’s Favorite Things (in NOLA) 2010

I can’t get you all of this stuff, Oprah-style, but every item has links to their site. If you’d like to know more about why each is my favorite, use the search window on the lower right to find photos, videos and stories.

I continue to accumulate favorite things about New Orleans, but here’s my first year favorites in a nutshell.