Alabama’s port city threw a Mardi Gras-style parade Friday night, Thousands of joyful revelers, many without masks, competed for plastic beads and trinkets tossed from floats, first since Carnival celebrations were scrapped earlier this year by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many lined up shoulder-to-shoulder and several deep along sidewalks, shouting and cheering as nearly 30 floats and several high school marching bands crossed a stretch of downtown Mobile. With both COVID-19 hospitalizations and vaccinations ebbing, many partied with abandon.