Before the Parade

I spent an hour in the city checking out the mardi gras action.
All I could manage were photos of participants in the parade who were heading for the marshalling area, and others watching..

In order to watch the parade you'd need to get behind a barrier about 2pm and then wait for six hours, so my photos don't show the sparkly, colourful and oiutrageous side.
I maybe could have done that ten years ago.

What I'd really like would be a media pass to get into the marshalling area:((

There's a flickr set of the very staid side of Mardi Gras.