Roadtrip Day 13: New Orleans Partying for Halloween

Remember how I mentioned that I had something very special planned for Halloween? I knew we would be in New Orleans and decided to do it up in style.

I was a dragon, Linus a unicorn, Earl a knight (St. George), and our cat, Lucy was a wizard. (Lucy is currently in Brooklyn as she doesn’t do well on roadtrips. You can see her wizard outfit here:

We got lost coming into New Orleans and almost drove clear out of the city. We were lost for about an hour and there was lots of traffic- on a Friday afternoon of Halloween weekend, cars were full of people coming into the city. We finally found our hotel, The Lafayette, which I had booked well in advance. It was one of the only firmly “planned” stays on this roadtrip. I figured- wisely, it turned out- that the city would be crazy over Halloween and it would be good to book lodging before it all filled up. The Lafayette was wonderful- located across the street from Lafayette Park and a brief walk to the French Quarter, we just garaged the Jeep and spent the entire two days on foot exploring the city. The staff was extremely welcoming and a pleasure. They FAWNED over Linus and even had biscuits at the front desk! It was clear they were all dog-lovers.

I had unwittingly booked us the Penthouse Suite on when I booked our room on hotels.com, so when I checked in I was surprised to learn we had the best digs in the place. “Wow,” my jaw dropped when we were shown our two-room suite on the top floor. Over the past week on this trip went from a roach motel in Memphis to a tin roof shack to a historic mansion and now a penthouse suite! Talk about an upward trend! J

Taking a brief pause to snuggle in the fluffy terrycloth robes and bounce around on the gorgeous bed, we donned our costumes and got ready to hit the town. My friend from NYC, Arnoldo who has lived in New Orleans the past three years had recommended some places on Frenchman Street to see live music and enjoy the night.

Here were our costumes:

Linus as Unicorn:

He also had matching green “hooves” but they sort of came off when he walked. And since we were to be walking all over the city, we decided to leave them off:

Earl as St. George the knight:

Me in my dragon costume:

The energy of the city on Halloween night was palpable. The streets were filled with party-goers who had gone ALL OUT on costumes. I thought we looked good in our homemade getups, well everyone else looked straight off a movie set. Professionally done, and I am not talking about costumes you can get off the shelves in a mall or at Rickys.

Here were just a few of the stunning getups we saw:

Some more incredibly elaborate outfits. The lovely girl was a peacock. She even had a mechanical peacock tail that opened and closed.

Ni! Ni!!

I have 148 photos from Halloween alone, so I am going to try and restrain myself to just a few!
We caught one of several parades going down Decatur Street. The crowd was enthusiastic and fun-loving but nowhere near the disgusting mob I’ve heard it becomes for Mardi Gras. I almost think Halloween in NO could be more fun than mardi-gras, because it is more locals and people who are there for the carnival/whimsical/dressing up aspect of it, than just… let’s get wasted and hook up spring break vibe I’d imagine there is over Mardi Gras. Just a thought.

We stayed towards the back of the crowd during the parade, by some firefighters, because we didn’t want Linus to get stepped on by anyone jumping to catch beads. Still, I managed to get a shot of some cool floats during the parades:

These “zombies” had one of the most awesome choreographed “thriller” inspired dances I’ve seen. I was not able to capture them at a good moment I more was rather in awe of them strut around and dancing than worrying about getting a good shot!

“Beads!! Beads!!” Even from where we were, in the back, people from the floats hucked beads that reached us.

The energy and music from all of the floats was catchy.

You couldn’t help but dancing to the music as they went by.

Linus was also a hit. People came from everywhere to pet him.

He was like a movie star. We couldn’t walk 4 feet without “PUPPY!!!!!!!!!” and people mobbing us to pet him.

He had lots of pictures taken and almost seemed like he would “pose” for everyone. It was hilarious and endearing. Everyone was very sweet and I only got nervous once when he was surrounded by a pack of like 12 kids at once who were all grabbing at his face and ears to pet him.

This woman was from Philly.

She told me “Let me show you the best part of my costume!” before she posed like this:

Did you know you can drink in the streets of New Orleans? While we walked around we carried cans of beer, it was great!

I thought we were savy for bringing our “unicorn” with us, well this guy was walking around with a live African Parrot on his shoulder! We tried to ask him about the bird, but he wouldn’t come out of “character” to actually talk to us.. haha… maybe he really was a real pirate.

From around here on out the night sort of was a blur. We had lots of fun getting lost in the French Quarter and hopping in and out of bars. People’s costumes were stunning and elaborate. I do remember finding our way back to the hotel, crawling into my fuzzy terrycloth robe without even taking off my makeup or glitter, and passing out. Earl told me later he took an exhausted Linus out for one last walk around the block and Linus didn’t even want to walk just around the block! Ha.