Mardi Gras and Beyond

When I was a kid, "Cops" was one of my favorite tv shows. Every year they would have an episode that would take place in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. The Police Officers would be walking through big crowds of people, sometimes on horses, looking for someone doing something illegal, which seemed nearly impossible in a city and time of year where just about anything goes (at least in the French Quarter). They always managed to find somebody at which time they would approach the person and start screaming in their face, then throw them on the ground and cuff em', and throw them in the back of the meat wagon. I loved this, and knew one day I would have to go to Mardi Gras.

The parades were incredible , the people were entertaining, and I even got to personally view a few of these scenes that excited me so much while watching "Cops" as a kid. The cops acted just like they did on tv, big smokey bear hat, hair cut to the skin, and hair trigger tempers to match. Rachel invited a friend of hers from Mississippi to come meet us up on Fat Tuesday. Out of the 3 of us, only 1 got the privilege of wearing handcuffs. It was alot of fun, but the next time I see Mardi Gras in New Orleans, it will be from the comfort of a living room, with a big nostalgic grin on my face.

After Fat Tuesday, we went to a couple historic sites around the city, and to some of the neighborhoods Rachel had worked in during the gulf recovery project she was involved in in 2007. The city is looking pretty good, so much so it was hard for her to find some of the most recognizable landmarks she had known. Alot of things were unrecognizable to her, as she was accustomed to seeing the city in an early post-Katrina condition. Enough of that though. After Mardi Gras, I had only one thing on my mind...crawfish!!

And boy were they good, ate right in the self proclaimed Crawfish Capitol of the World, Breaux Bridge! But we had bigger crustaceans to fry, and that was getting our butts up to Arkansas.

Arkansas

I've always been drawn to Arkansas, ever since thumbing through old books containing pictures of the Ozark mountain people, tromping around through the brush barefoot, rifle in hand, doing whatever it is that barefoot people with guns do. This stuff was always interesting to me, and I went to Arkansas wanting to see some real crazy stuff. Like deformed people playing banjoes on a porch, or humans that have been isolated from the mainstream population for so long they have become their own race. Well, the hills didn't have eyes. - Tyler