The weekend prior to Fat Tuesday features lots of parades day and night, and more often than not I make a lot of them. This year, however, the LSU collegiate race weekend was scheduled on top of it, and seeing as I am still a little broken and without a plausible excuse, I ended up officiating all weekend along with Ricky and Mike.
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| Walking to the start line |
Turnout for the race was surprisingly light with fewer than fifty riders on hand despite great weather and good courses and fairly good organization. Before the race I was expecting there would be problems with registration and licenses and such because at the first collegiate race of the season they had let a bunch of riders race in the wrong categories and/or without actual racing licenses. As it turned out, though, there weren't many problems like that.
There was a Friday night pre-registration session from 6-10 pm at LSU that turned out to be a huge waste of time. I guess maybe five people picked up their numbers there. It would have been a problem for Saturday morning if the race turnout had been large, but with such a small crowd, everything was fine and the races all got off more or less on time and without incident. The only problem for me, other than the discomfort of having to wear this x-brace and not being able to do some things with my left arm was that it was cold up there in St. Francisville. I was freezing for the first couple of hours.
Sunday's races were held a the State Police training track between Baton Rouge and St. Francisville which is basically a little car racing track. The course went around the perimeter, so it was a long, windy, non-technical loop. The A race was interesting. After Ben Bradley had won the Road Race and Time Trial, it was time for Ben Spain to take a shot at the Criterium. He went off the front early with an LSU rider and they ended up finishing about 20 seconds ahead of the second group. It didn't look easy. Later that day there were two non-collegiate races that were surprisingly well attended and featured some really nice racing. In the "A" race Ben Bradley basically time trialed the entire thing, finishing almost a minute ahead of two of his teammates, who themselves finished ahead of the pack that was led in by two more of their teammates, so they took places 1-5.
I was glad I didn't have work on Monday and could rest up a bit for Mardi Gras. I got up early Tuesday morning and put in a few miles on the levee before heading over to Audubon Park to watch the start of the Royal Run. Danielle met me there and picked up a Rex T-shirt, which was purple this year. By the time we got home the truck floats were already starting to line up along S. Clairborne outside our house. It was probably around 7:45 am. and some of them would still be rolling at 4:30 as we were walking home from the French Quarter.
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| Kenny and Danielle and Sofia |
With Candy coming down with a cold, Danielle and I headed out to St. Charles Avenue to meet up with Ginger and some of her friends in front of The Columns. Once the first floats of the Rex parade arrived we walked farther down to 2525 St. Charles where they always stop to toast and take a break while they wait for Zulu to complete its turn onto St. Charles from Jackson Avenue. I took a bunch of photos there, and then once they started rolling again we continued walking toward the French Quarter.
Once there we wandered around for a couple of hours, stopped to eat, and met up with Kenny and Candy for a little while, finally heading back home around 3:30 or 4:00. The crowd down in the French Quarter was pretty tame this year, and the weather was great so there were a lot of costumes. We always leave before things start getting really crowded and the people start getting really drunk. By the time we got home it was almost dark and my feet and hips were killing me, which is pretty much normal for Mardi Gras. It's about a four mile walk each way, so counting all of the walking around we did while down in the Quarter, I'd say we walked at least twelve miles.
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