I love a parade!

Yesterday was the annual West Seattle parade down California Avenue SW, and Mike, Sarah, Claire, Gabe and I took our camping chairs and a cooler with some drinks and snacks up to the route, found a shady spot to park ourselves, and watched the festivities. It has been REALLY hot here in Seattle (it reached 95 yesterday and was a bit humid, made even worse by the fact that nobody has air-conditioning here because it is very rarely so hot!). But, we were lucky yesterday morning and afternoon to be under cloudy skies for the parade, so it wasn't so bad.

This parade isn't like the typical Iowa parade that I'm used to...there are no tractors, combines, big farm implements or horses in this parade. And this parade has some other things that the Iowa parades I went to never had:

• various drill teams with names like "The Dangerettes, " "The Dolls," and their group of littler girls, called "The Baby Dolls" who do step routines at as they march down the route in their cowboy boots while getting spritzed with water by their moms and coaches to help them stay cool
• the Chinese drill team with the girls decked out in their long, red silk and gold robes, wearing big head pieces and pulling a big drum and other percussion instruments to keep the beat
• the Seafair Pirates with their boat on wheels walking down the parade route scaring the children with their big swords and warning people with babies and dogs as to when they will be shooting the cannon off on their ship (which is REALLY loud!)
• the motorcycle drill teams from both the Seattle Police Department and the Vancouver, B.C. Police Department weaving in and out of each other and zooming around on their Harley Davidsons with the sirens blaring

But there are definitely similarities to the Iowa parades I've been to as well -- there are the floats, marching bands, fire trucks, Cub Scouts and pretty girls sitting in convertibles and waving because they were nominated for or had won various pageants.

This is the third time that Gabe and I have gone to this parade; we started going when we lived in our apartment that was one block off of the parade route. We found out about the parade by accident when one Saturday at around 10 AM or so, I woke up to hearing someone speak over a loudspeaker. I immediately thought for some reason, "Hey, I bet it's a parade!" And, I woke Gabe up, we took our lawn chairs about 50 feet away to the street through the alley behind our apartment building and watched it. We missed the parade the past couple of years since we moved to our house (I always started wondering about the parade and looked into it after it had already happened), but it was great to check it out again this year and have a nice, relaxing way to spend an afternoon. And, we got to be part of Claire's first ever parade experience! :)