Mardis Gras!

The Shangri-La Dragon Float ----Our "Loot" ------------The Clydesdales in Metairie

The latest adventure involved a visit with Stephen & Katie in New Orleans during the first weekend of Mardis Gras. We got to see 4 parades - 1 Friday night and 3 on Saturday.
The first three were all in Uptown New Orleans.
Friday was a relatively small parade, but lots of fun. We watched in the Garden District near Marengo and St Charles.
Saturday afternoon we saw two parades, again on St Charles (Shangri-La and Ponchartrain).
Lots of beads, lots of bands, lots of fun.
Finally on Saturday night, we went to the Caesar parade in Metairie. This one was much bigger and longer (and colder - pretty chilly last weekend). You can see the pictures above.

We were both surprised at the family atmosphere and with how much fun it was. Lots of families bring their children - along with seats mounted on ladders so they don't wear out the parents shoulders. Where we watched, it's not at all like the pictures you see of the French Quarter during Mardis Gras.

We'll be back next year!

Dad's Christmas Present ----- Stephen & Katie at the Track

It sure has been a long time since we posted to the blog – it’s hard when you are operating on dial up. We can play a whole solitaire game while we wait for the next page to load up. Tonight we are on a fast connection so are taking advantage.

Sally and Tom are enjoying our time at Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge, but for some strange reason we are always visiting someone on the weekends (which is why we are in Eufaula, to be able to go visit people, wild eh?).

We had a nice holiday season. We attended the Hall family gathering the week before Christmas. We then traveled to stay with Sally’s dad on Christmas weekend.

After a short work week, we got to go the Independence Bowl in Shreveport. Unfortunately, the Alabama team did not show up till the 4th quarter and then it was “too little, too late”. We spent the rest of the weekend before New Year’s with Stephen and Katie the week after Christmas. We spent Saturday afternoon at the race track – Stephen and Katie had the best afternoon (money-wise) but we all enjoyed the visit.

It is very good to get with family. We truly enjoyed our holiday season with them.

We have been spending quite a bit of our work time at the refuge working in the office. We are helping to clean up and archive records from as far back as 1964. It is strange to sit and look at the methods used in the sixties and seventies and compare it to the methods used today. Handwritten and single spaced typed memos with carbon copies were very common when we started work so many years ago, but we grew up moving the information into the technologies that are used today. We lightly review some of the reports and wonder how hard it was to compare information year to year. We are truly living in a wonderful time, if you like fast paced; cram everything into short periods of time and move on to the next subject.

We’ll post again (sooner this time) and catch you up on our other work at the refuge, Sally’s knitting and our trip to New Orleans for Mardis Gras!