Chess Jeudi Gras

It took me some time to figure out what is shown in this photo. The title ('Chess') didn't help much and the description was missing.

Chess © Flickr user skooksie under Creative Commons.

The first useful identifying text said,

This photo is in 1 album • Mardi Gras 2024 • 444 items

OK, I got it. It's a night time shot of a Mardi Gras float with a big hand on the top of the float and a chess game on the side. There are a few people standing on the float and other people milling around it.

It reminded me of another post from a few years back, Chess Mardi Gras (February 2018). That photo was from Nice, France and had a link to another Mardi Gras photo from Lisbon, Portugal. Where was today's photo taken? The tags for the photo said,

Mardi Gras • Carnival • Parade • St Charles Avenue • Krewe of Babylon

Two of those tags lead us to St. Charles Avenue - New Orleans Streets to Visit (neworleans.com). Another one leads to Knights of Babylon (wikipedia.org), which starts,

The Knights of Babylon parade on Jeudi Gras, the Thursday night prior to Mardi Gras. The Knights of Babylon Parade rolls annually on its traditional Uptown New Orleans parade route. Babylon is always the first parade on this evening, leading the way for the other Thursday parades, and blazing the trail for Carnival weekend festivities

Jeudi Gras? Literally, 'Fat Thursday'? I didn't even know that was a thing. I just love where the little game of chess takes me.