Not Quite the Parade We Expected...

Let me preface this by saying, if you've never been on the Algiers Ferry (the ferry that takes you from the West Bank of New Orleans and lets you off at the foot of Canal Street in Downtown New Orleans), it's pretty straightforward. The ferry runs on the hour and half-hour, which means it leaves the Westbank at XX:00 and leaves the Eastbank at XX:30. The longest you'd ever have to wait for the ferry is 30 minutes, and that's only if you just missed it...

So yesterday we decide we're going to avoid the standstill bridge traffic and head over by ferry and walk and watch the parade there. What greeted us as we approached was not one, but two lines, thousands of people waiting to get onto the ferry:

These are photos of the side we were on. At the other entrance to the ferry was another line equally as long.

See it's getting darker here and we're still not up the steps of the terminal yet...

Here we are 30 minutes into the wait...Lil' Bit is sick and shortly after this photo I walked her the 5 blocks to my parent's house and walked back and hubs had only moved forward about 10 feet...

We got into the line at 5:00, by 7:00 we gave up. We only made it to the doors into the waiting area to get onto the ferry, and once we were there a ferry pulled up but there were so many people we would have had to wait for at least one more. The surge of people trying to get onto the ferry was actually scaring me and at that point we decided to go home and watch it on TV.

Disappointed? Yes. But glad the city showed such an outpouring of love for our boys in Black and Gold!