Saint's Victory Parade

Win or lose, the city was going to have a parade for the Saints. The football season had been so exciting that the city just wanted to celebrate. After they won the Superbowl, we decided to go ahead and stay in NOLA two extra days to go to the parade.

We knew that many, many people were planning to go to the parade. We knew it would be crazy. We had no idea! We went through a lot of different ideas on how to get there. Should we park and walk, should we park and take the Street car, should we take the ferry? We decided to park on the West Bank and take the ferry across. Unfortunately, everyone else in the city had the same idea. It was C.R.A.Z.Y.! The city did not plan well and was only running one ferry. It came every 30 minutes. We waited for three ferries. There were TONs of people and we were all in very close quarters. People were getting worried they wouldn't make it over and some were cutting in line causing arguments. We finally made it over! This is a picture of Micaiah in the stroller waiting for the boat. The kids did so well. As we were getting on the boat they closed the gate. People kept pushing and no one in front of us could move. We were seriously starting to get smashed and it was pretty scary. I was screaming, "Stop pushing," at people but it wasn't working. Finally everyone in front of us started moving. I can see how easy it is for people to get trampled.


Trying to get a picture of Orin and Pops but as you can see Orin was being silly. We waited for the parade for about 1 1/2 hours. It was so SLOW.

Finally cooperating. I love it!
Sitting and waiting for the parade.

Trying to pass time while we waited for the parade. As we were leaving the car I grabbed the Leapster and a bag of snacks. I sure am glad I did!

We were right by this tree that had a small metal fence around it. Mom and I stood on the fence and it was perfect.

This is a video of us waiting to get on the ferry to go across for the parade. On the way back we waited in line for about 45 minutes. It was even worse than coming over. People were not as happy so there were loud screaming arguments breaking out, people were cutting in line and going on the wrong side, a woman fainted, etc. I was getting really scared. It was very uncomfortable and getting really scared that people in the crowd would turn violent. The line didn't seem to be moving anywhere. Damien and I decided that we needed to just get out. So we pushed our way back through the line an went to the Hilton hotel and just sat in the lobby. We knew no one could pick us up right away because the traffic was bumper to bumper with people trying to get out of the city. We waited there for a few hours until about 11:30pm when Mimie could come and get us. The kids were amazing and feel asleep in the chairs. Mimie picked up Damien, my dad and some friends we had run into. She brought them to their cars and Damien came back over to pick us up. We got back to her house around 12:30am. It was a crazy night.