Chris Bickford

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Tomorrow begins the big road trip down to New Orleans to cover the Carnival and Mardi Gras celebrations, leg #2 of The Carnival Project, which began over the last couple of years with my coverage of Carnival in Venice.  It’s a 17-hour drive, but my co-pilot and assistant Federica Valabrega will be sharing driving duties with me and we hope to make it down and be settled in to our apartment in the Tremé in time to cover the Saturday night parade of the Krewe de Vieux, the only night-time parade through the French Quarter during the Carnival season.   This year the King of the Krewe de Vieux will be the venerable Dr. John, one of the great living legends of New Orleans music.   I can’t wait to see the old man in his crazy king outfit and his long beard rolling through the Quarter, laying down the benediction of funk and gumbo upon the revelers along the parade route.

Because of my last-minute trip out to California, whose post seems to have gotten partially deleted for some strange reason, we will be arriving a little late to the festivities.   But with the Saints having won a historic victory in the Superdome in sudden-death overtime last Sunday night, spirits in the Crescent City are high–the sad memory of the Superdome post-Katrina has been replaced by the elation of a resilient city whose spirited football team led their franchise to its first Super Bowl in its history–and with such auspicious beginnings this Carnival season proves to be epic and historic in many ways, weather permitting.

We plan to provide updates as often as possible over the next couple of weeks leading up to Mardi Gras, provided we don’t get so sucked into the spirit of the street symphony that we forget to blog and tweet and facebook…at the very least I’ll keep making my silly iPhone camera updates on Facebook, so if you want to see what’s going on, join me on Facebook…I’m the Chris Bickford in the “Virginia Beach/Norfolk” network…

I’ll save my ramblings on the interest and significance of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras in the pantheon of great Carnival traditions for a later time.   Right now I need to pack up, gear up, and get a little  rest.  Stay tuned…