Marching with the Saints - Summerdale, AL

Boy do these folks in lower Alabama know how to party! First of all their party lasts for several days to a month or more. No use wasting a good party by limiting themselves to one day. After surviving a cold and rainy morning/afternoon (but no snow!) - it cleared up in the late afternoon and we made it over to the clubhouse around 5:00 to join the party that was already in progress. We had a great spaghetti dinner and then the merriment began with the choosing of the Rainbow Plantation Mardi Gras King and Queen using the traditional eating of the King Cake.

Neither Peggy nor I were fortunate enough to be chosen as royalty but we joined in the "conga" line helping to celebrate the coronation to "As the Saints Come Marching in."

You can see from the picture below that a "good time" was being had by all. Especially Judy and Terry.

Once the King and Queen were upon their thrones we all enjoyed the music of the Vintage Vagabonds playing some classic light jazz, mostly from the 40s and 50s. Along the way we gained some beads to add to our carnival collection. We stayed until the jazz joint closed down at "SKP midnight" (9:00 PM) having had a great time.

This morning we joined Darrell, Judy, Mike, and Gerri and drove into to Foley to attend the 10:00 AM Mardi Gras Parade. Unfortunately, the 10:00 AM parade didn't start till noon so we dropped into Stacey's Rexall Drugs, had some 10 cent coffee, and listened to the juke box playing real vinyl 45s (you younger folks will have no idea what I'm talking about here).

We still had time to kill so we walked down to the Model Train Museum for another tour and then back downtown for the parade. The parade lasted about 45 minutes and featured the local high school band, dignitaries, and several floats, manned by local Krews throwing lots of beads and moon pies.

After fighting the local kids for beads and pies we all drove over to L-A BBQ for some pretty darned good BBQ.

Whew - this Mardi Gras stuff will wear you out! Time to rest up for tomorrow.