All About the Kimmels: Madri Gras

Aaron & I learned our leason last year! Madri Gras in New Orleans was too crazy for us to go to a second year. So this year we decided to go to Galveston TX. There is an ok beach there and several things to do! We headed out early Saturday morning with Gary, Maribel and Brian. We got there in time for all four day parades but decided to go out to the beach and some of the shops and small fair. We did get rained on a little but we decided to make the most of it and stuck it out. Later that night we headed out for the Madri Gras parade which was fun. My favortie part was all the high school bands playing. Of course the floats are nice too and watching people fight over cheap beads.

I never really knew what Madri Gras was or how it got started. So I asked people here at work that are from Louisiana and got the same story from them all. So here it goes, a little FYI: Basically back in the day people (Catholic) fasted for 40 days also known as Lint. Obviously they didn't have a lot of money so all the food they had grown and raised could not go to waste so the weekend before they would eat and drink everything. Also known as gloutney which is a sin. I guess that's also where they got the name Fat Tuesday!?!?! Fat Tuesday was the last day before the start of lint. I'm not sure on all the facts I guess I should Google it! But thats where it got started and like most holidays has lost it's true meaning. I'm not sure where the beads, parades and drunks came in but they did. Some people just say it's a time to get out all your sins before you give up something for Lint, I'm not sure about that though!

So back to Galveston. After the parade we went out for a very nice dinner (something we don't get often being in Leesville). The next day we got up and headed to Rain Forest Cafe which was a lot of fun. We even went on the little boat ride and Maribel got scared by the snake that jumps out at you! Haha that was fun to watch! After that we went our seperate ways. Aaron and I went back to the beach and walked around and looked at everything. I think I mentioned in an earlier post Hurricane Ike, well that's the one that hit Galveston! It was crazy seeing everything. The little town we went through before getting on the Ferry was completly gone! There had previously been beautiful houses all along the coast and they were all gone! But there were tons of people out working cleaning up and ready to celebrate Madri Gras. Once we crossed over the Ferry you could hardly tell a hurricane had hit. Until we started looking for some of the shops we liked and realized they were gone too. But I would say the place was up and going very fast seeing how the storm was just a few months ago! Maybe because it was in Texas and Bush only likes Texas so he helped them! HAHA I'm joking! You can tell when people really care and aren't lazy, they actually get up and clean and build back themselves! They don't wait on others to do everything for them (New Orleans)! Man I like Texas more everyday! After exploring the beach we headed over to Moody Gardens and checked out the aquarium. It was fun. After that we started back to Fort Polk. And was refreshed and ready to go back to work....ok not really. Next week we are off to Ohio...