New Orleans - Saturday, December 2, 2017

We started our morning at Mardi Gras World.  They have a shuttle that runs through the French Quarter and through the Canal Street area.  You just call them up and they come pick you up at one of their designated spots.  We picked up the shuttle across the street from this neat Cathedral:

The Mardi Gras World has tours through their warehouse where they build and store many of the Mardi Gras floats that are used in the 54 parades that occur the two weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday (i.e. Mardi Gras).  Plus they do a lot of props for Disney and all the cows for Chick-fil-A.  Each parade during Mardi Gras is planned by a Krewe.  A Krewe is made up of New Orleans citizens who pay to be members and pay to ride on the floats.  They have annual dues plus pay for all the gifts they throw.  Some of the floats can cost as much as a million dollars.  

The tour included a 15 minute video about the history of Mardi Gras and then about 1.25 hours walk through their warehouse and "secret" event space.

This prop is probably made out of fiber glass, considering it is kept outside - this is a more expensive process and so not used for most props for parades.

The brown is paper mache that covers the strofoam.

This prop is in the process of being covered with paper mache.

This baby Kong is a prop used year after year and each year, they need to repair it with new paper mache and new paint.

This elephant is being modified to fit a tea party theme - the woman is adding paper mache to the sleeves that have been recently added.

Another prop in the paper mache stage

Most props are made out of layers of styrofoam.

They often put new heads on old bodies to make new props.  Most props are modified from older props.  Only a small percentage are made from scratch.

These leaves are made from tag board (and metal wires on the back of the leaves to give it the veins that also help the leaves keep their form).

We have now entered the paint station.  They use both air brushes and traditional brushes to do the painting.

Chick-fil-A cows

a digital machine that carves some props with the use of computer programing

Then our tour guide showed us their event space.  It used to be the waiting room for a casino when they only allowed gambling on the water (i.e. steamboats).  It had a plantation theme with bars and areas to relax.  This is all indoors.

We then walked down by the river and had lunch at the Riverwalk Mall at Mooyah, which was really good!  As we were eating (inside), there were others sitting outside eating when a flock of seagulls descended on them, swooping their heads....  It was quite entertaining.

Our next stop was the French Quarter.

We visited the Madame John's Legacy museum which is one of the only wooden houses in the French Quarter.  This is the house where the owners had the means to build immediately after the fire in the late 1700s before the city could enact regulations requiring all houses be built out of brick.  It is one of the last houses built in the creole style.

Then we checked out the 1850 House Museum which is a row house on Jackson Square.

We then checked out St. Louis Cathedral which sits on the north side of Jackson Square.

Then we headed back to the hotel and ran into the end of a Christmas parade.

The people in neon green in the background are the clean-up crew that follows the parade.

Dinner was at Deanie's Seafood which was very good, after they remade my food to comply with my allergies.  At least our waitress was really good and fixed any errors that came out of the kitchen.

Before heading back to the hotel we went looking for some more wine at Vieux Carre Wine & Spirits which has a great selection of wines.