Checking Out the Sights of New Orleans

Our River Cruise does not start until Sunday, so we had a full day Saturday to explore this Southern Delta City.  After breakfast we got on a bus and headed for the "Garden District". 

What??

It is an old area of New Orleans with plenty of interesting small shops, restaurants, and boutiques.

Karen searched a large antique mall.  She found a surprising number of Kentucky Derby glasses but none that her collection is missing.

Bill found this cute Irish unicorn. 

Note:  we both are wearing yellow so we don't loose one another.

From the bus going to our next stop, we passed the still damaged Hard Rock Hotel.  Last October the top floors collapsed during construction. People were killed.  The incident is still under investigation and litigation.  

(Maybe they need Uncle Rick?)

Our next hop off the bus was at this place above:

Mardi Gras World.

This business creates the floats and attractions for the Mardi Gras Parades.  They give guided tours every 1/2 hour so we joined a group.

There was a lot of interesting things to see.

First we watched a short movie about the history of Mardi Gras and the evolution of the floats and parades in the city.  The tour guide explained that the creatures are either built out of fiberglass, or styrofoam and paper mache.

This King Kong above was twenty feet tall!

They normally do not throw away old creations, they often rebuild and reuse them on new floats instead.  

The warehouse was full of hundreds of unique creatures that had previously ridden on floats in the various parades over the years.

Bill felt a fellowship with this fellow.   They both need to go on diets.

Mardi Gras World is truly a fascinating place in which to wander,

but finally we moved on and got back on a bus for our next destination.

Karen was itching to make a stop here:  Harrah's Casino.

She tried a few machines but soon decided it was not her lucky day for gaming.

We had a busy fun day in New Orleans and headed back to our hotel.

🎰