Bulldozer00's Blog

…time to put my day-to-day responsibilities on hold and make my annual trek to New Orleans LA to celebrate Mardi Gras 2015.

At the time this post auto-publishes, I:

• will have arrived in NOLA with my best buddy Reno,
• checked in to the Crowne Plaza hotel on the corner of Bourbon and Canal Streets
• headed out into the night to join the party-goers on Bourbon St.

If you’re in NOLA anytime through Fat Tuesday, post a comment here or tweet me. Perhaps we can hook up for a fun time throwing and catching beads, eating cajun food, cruising the banks of the mighty Mississippi river, watching outrageously gawdy parades, and smiling our asses off. Life is too short for me to miss the greatest party on earth.

According to historians, Mardi Gras dates back thousands of years to pagan celebrations of spring and fertility, including the raucous Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Lupercalia. When Christianity arrived in Rome, religious leaders decided to incorporate these popular local traditions into the new faith, an easier task than abolishing them altogether. As a result, the excess and debauchery of the Mardi Gras season became a prelude to Lent, the 40 days of penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. Traditionally, in the days leading up to Lent, merrymakers would binge on all the meat, eggs, milk and cheese that remained in their homes, preparing for several weeks of eating only fish and fasting. In France, the day before Ash Wednesday came to be known as Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday.”