St. Patrick's Day Parade - Metarie Road

Today the roommate, another friend, and I decided to enjoy the taste of gorgeous spring weather that Southern Louisiana is currently experiencing by attending the St. Patrick's Day Parade along Old Metarie Road in Metarie! We went there with no expectations about the parade, other than to see cabbage being thrown from floats along with beads! Since Mardi Gras was only a few weeks ago, the three of us were all beaded out and waiting for the cabbage. In fact, we were purposely not trying to catch beads!

We parked near the intersection of Metarie Road and the Railroad tracks near Winston's Pub. Parking near the pub off the parade route was perfect because it gave us access to a clean bathroom in exchange for purchasing a beverage, thus allowing us to avoid the port-o-potties!

After a pit stop and re-hydrating, the three of us walked up Metarie Road to Metarie Village Shopping Center and picked out a spot. While the parade was entertaining and had some great music, it was quite different from the Mardi Gras parades we saw a few weeks ago: no marching bands and lots of marching groups. The variety of Irish music playing from the floats was great, too! Definitely recognized a few of the floats as being recycled from Mardi Gras!

Since we were at the end of the parade route, we chose not to stay for the whole parade since it was getting later in the afternoon and we'd been in the sun for most of the day. Plus, we wanted to beat the traffic! In addition to the enjoyable weather and parade, the people watching was absolutely fantastic!

Parade Location: