Galveston, TX – Catch-up, Part 2

Today's Catch-Up blog is about the Galveston Mardi Gras Parade.  Galveston actually celebrates Mardi Gras in a HUGE way, with multiple parades, the most elaborate ones require an entrance fee to watch. We just attended the first one, the  Mystic Krewe of Aquarius 25th annual parade, a free parade featuring 25 area High School bands and over 80 fun floats that runs along the Galveston Sea Wall on Saturday Feb. 2 in late morning on an absolutely beautiful day.  I'm not much of a fan of parades, but never having seen a Mardi Gras parade we figured we should not miss the opportunity.  I'm glad we went; it was a wonderful 'people-watching' opportunity as well as a fun parade.  If I could have done so without feeling I was intruding, I would have taken more photos of the people watching than of the parade floats - especially of the wonderful excited children staring at wonder at the spectacle and gleefully hanging beads around their necks.  Here is just a sampling of what we saw:

Parade Participants/Performers:

 And the Audience - in a few cases, hard to tell the audience members from the parade participants, as people really get in the spirit of the event wearing amazing costumes and having a ball!  

This little boy was so adorable that I don't think a single float passed by without tossing him beads!

This guy caught a few beads too :)