another parade
Well, as some of you may have noticed that this past weekend was the yearly Decadence Festival. So the French Quarter was filled with Florida residence fleeing the hurricane and the festivalgoers. I found out that on Sunday afternoon there was going to be a parade, so I thought that it would be a great opportunity to take some pictures. Well, after driving around for a half an hour, I found the perfect parking spot only two blocks from where I was going. When I got to where I thought the parade was, there was no one else there. So I waited for a few minutes, then slowly they started to appear. In groups of three or four at a time, the marches of the parade trickled down the street. From what a friend had told me, I had caught the parade to far down on the route. He said that the marchers had walked a few blocks and then decided that their time would be better spent at the bar. So there were no sights to seen.
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Sorry to hear of your recent tragedies, Samual. While I wasn’t able to make it to the parade, I have heard of absence of it this year. That’s quite a shame. This would have been my 8th year to see the parade, and every year up until now has been great, lasting at least an hour.
Samuel, I think you may have set your hopes a little high. The Decadence “parade” is not a typical parade. Basically, it’s a glorified bar crawl, led by the Grand Marshal.
Everyone arrives at the Golden Lantern for 2:00pm, at which time the Grand Marshal takes off down the street, accompanied by much fanfare. The parade dies a sudden death, though, about three blocks down Royal Street, as the group invariably makes a sudden turn toward lesser-known bars. The die-hards stay with the Grand Marshal, but the bulk of the queens head to the Fruit Loop (i.e. the Lafittes/Pub/Oz/Good Friends/Rawhide circuit). Sadly, that’s probably what you saw: little groups of disappointed homos on their way toward bigger crowds.