NATCHEZ — As a Greg Piggot weaved throughout the crowd at Friday’s parade, the expressions on his face changed between confusion and excitement.

“I had absolutely no idea what was going on when I got here,” he said clutching his motorcycle helmet in his hand. “This is a very strange surprise.”

Piggot, from London, was in the midst of his cross-country motorcycle trip that started in Baltimore.

Piggot put down his bike’s kickstand just one hour before the parade started.

Piggot said he deliberately did not go to New Orleans because he wanted to avoid the crowds at Mardi Gras.

“I had no idea this was happening here,” he said.

As Piggot spoke, he became easily distracted by the sights and sounds of the parade going on in front of him.

Piggot said he first thought the people in the street were participating in some type of school sporting event.

“It’s madness,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”

As the Krewe of Phoenix rolled on it displayed its beauty in many ways.

The Natchez Middle School Marching Band provided music for both their dance team and a group of middle-age women dancing on a downtown balcony.

And as children ran wildly on the sidewalk, a woman temporarily abandoned her stroller, complete with child, to grab a pair of beads that landed under the barricade.

As the stroller continued on its course, unpiloted, the woman finally clutched her prize and returned to the free-wheeling baby.

Not everyone at the parade was as new to carnival scene as Piggot.

“This is pretty much our spot,” Guylyn Boles said.

Boles said for the last four years she has staked out the same spot, just behind Bowie’s, for a very specific reason.

“This is where the parade starts and ends,” she said. “This is where they throw the most stuff, at the very end.”

As the Krewe of Phoenix came to rest in the same spot it started, Les Wisinger stepped out the back door of his float.

Wisinger was the 2008 King of Phoenix.

Wisinger was able to sum up the parade experience in just three words.

“It was fabulous,” he said.