Mardi Gras 2015

Mardi Gras revelers in the St. Ann's parade's

Mardi Gras 2015 sunrise shines on St. Anne's costumed revelry in Marigny
As the Mardi Gras sun rose above the crisp Marigny streets, it revealed revelers, emerging from colorful doorways, their costumed joy overflowing into the light as they giddily anticipated the hours of celebration ahead and prayed for warmer hours to come.

Outside the R Bar at Royal and Kerlerec streets, many of these debaucherous spirits of creativity gradually converged, shining through the Mardi Gras 2015 morning's chill.

Many awaited the Saint Anne marching parade, a relatively informal gathering open to all costumed creatures who understand its customs, route, or at least befriend a previous year's parade goer who can guide them.

It goes by various nicknames, the Krewe of St. Anne, Société of Sainte Anne, or just plain St. Anne, but there was nothing Plain Jane on this last day of Carnival, as its participants' bundled up closely with one another, beers and cocktails in tow, numbing themselves to the weather.

Memories of last year's frostier Mardi Gras also kept the bedecked crowd warm. While Mardi Gras 2014 fell later in the year -- March 4 -- it was raining and infamously cold with a high of just 41 degrees, only 2 degrees above the coldest Fat Tuesday temperature on record. That 39-degree record was set Feb. 14, 1899.

Bywater to the French Quarter on Mardi Gras Day

But masked hoards descended on the streets undeterred to revel before Ash Wednesday's arrival. And those who hailed from elsewhere said they felt warm relative to their snowy and less festive home climates.

Jaomi and Jessica Brasher, of Austin, Texas, lucked into a house a few doors down from R Bar because their friends got snowed in, when their flight was canceled Sunday out of Boston. The Brashers had a place arranged in Uptown but they would have had to trek to the Marigny for their favorite starting-point bar of the day.

"We all come here religiously for Mardi Gras. We'll miss them," said Jaomi Brasher, 40, clad in an overflowing purple wig. "We try to hook up with St. Anne, but then we often get lost, wander off into a bar, head down by the river."

With sunlight barely a twinkle, a few roosters meandered around the Marigny, calling out to all. Remnants of the weekend partying were scattered everywhere: beads now covered in wet leaves from the early morning rain, shards of beer bottles sprinkled within them, one crumpled glove, and couples walking alongside, searching for cars parked the day before.

Mark and Effie Green, of Denton, Texas, arrived Monday and had left their car parked by Washington Square. Unaware of their surroundings, they had a "bodyguard" escorting them, complete with a muscle-man costume and a baby doll in a satchel strapped around his ripped stomach.

"We're trying to find the car," Mark Green, 40, said. They had picked up magic beans at Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo in the Quarter on Monday.

Effie Green had bought special skeleton earrings there, which her husband said had turned her eyes green "and had her head spinning around."

"We almost got divorced," Mark Green said wryly. "I threw my bean at her."

A few blocks away, Chad Rigsby, 42, was an aberration -- an un-costumed man.

"I'm normally the Moss Man," Rigbsy said. He performs as such in Quarter.

"So, today, I'm off work. On my day off, I don't dress up," he said.

A catwoman came speedily by. "Hey, Chad!" she called.

Under her feathered ears, Willow LeMechant, 35, of the Bywater, explained she was racing to the Algiers-Canal Street ferry to meet a friend coming from Belle Chasse. LeMechant is a tarot card reader in Jackson Square, but she is taking the holiday.

"I must really love Nicole," she said, her cat nose red as she continued on her 45-minute journey to the ferry landing.

Outside of R Bar, Mike Wilder, 45, an architect, said he was going by the name "Porkopolis Now" for Mardi Gras. He lives a few blocks down in the Marigny and had set up a grill, selling pulled pork sliders and sausages for $5 a helping.

"This is my neighborhood bar, and I often walk in St. Anne, but this guy 'Red' who normally does jambalaya and crawfish here is gone, so I'm here," Wilder said.

"This is ground zero," said Wilder, dressed as pimp with a leopard cape and feathered hat, as he welcomed an Elvis pulling up on a bicycle for a slider.

Cr.The Times Picayune