Long Parades and Strong North Winds

The Bianchi is still kind of in pieces right now since I haven't found the time to pull the cranks off to check the bottom bracket and reassemble everything with the new chain and chainrings. The derailleur jockey wheels were a real mess, and since I was out of mineral spirits that I use for cleaning that sort of thing, I had decided to wait until I could pick some up. After work yesterday I took care of that and also stopped by the bike shop to get a CO2 inflater since I apparently lost mine somewhere between my last flat in Natchez and Monday night. A little while later I was back on the commuter bike to ride out to the Columns on St. Charles Avenue with Danielle to watch the Druids and Nyx parades. I had heard that Mignon was in Druids with the Amelia EarHawts Cabin Krewe, and one of Danielle's professors was in Nyx.

It was comfortable riding out there around 7 pm, but I'd worn my winter riding jacket because I knew it would be getting colder as the night wore on, and indeed it did wear on. Druids went pretty smoothly, getting to where we were in front of the Columns Hotel around 7:30 I guess. The crowds were just the right size last night - not too many people, so easy to move around.  Amazingly, all of the ladders were neatly lined up about six feet from the curb, which is probably the first time I've seen that.  That allowed enough room for people to stand in front of them without getting squashed up against the ladders every time a big band came through. We found Mignon easily when the EarHawts marched or danced or strutted by.

I was trying out a new used camera I'd gotten just hours earlier via ebay.  It is the identical model to the Nikon AW110 I've been using.  My old one's memory card slot broke a while back so it usually couldn't read, or even find, the card, dramatically limiting the number of photos I could take since the internal memory is relatively small.  Otherwise I really like the camera because it's waterproof and presumably shockproof, which it just the thing for a camera that spends most of its time in jersey pockets. Unfortunately I hadn't had a chance to adjust all of the settings the way I like, and apparently the lens was a little dirty, so some of the photos didn't turn out as nicely as I'd have liked. On the plus side, at least I didn't have to learn how to operate it or set it up.

The Nyx parade followed immediately behind Druids, but there was a long delay at one point when one of the big double floats miscalculated the turn onto St. Charles and apparently had to back up and try again. To make matters worse, Nyx now has, I think, forty floats, which is really a bit much for a weekday night parade. This krewe tried to be very inclusive and indeed seems to have both of the locally predominant skin colors equally represented, but the floats and costumes are generally uninspiring. It's basically like a shortened truck parade all dressed up like a regular parade. Anyway, it was fun, but by the time they were up to float #30 I was starting to look at my watch and then down the street to see how many more floats there were. We nonetheless stayed to the end, which was around 11 pm, I think, before riding back home.