I Love a Parade!

And Portland seems to have plenty. Last week it was the St. John's Parade that was quite formal featuring several marching bands, political candidates, Rodeo Queens, Vespa clubs, the Broke Bike Mounties, and lots of old cars. And lots of things with motors: Model T clubs, muscle cars, motorcycles, ATVs, minibikes and so on. The parade was judged and all entrants sported Official Numbers and many already had their ribbons signifying their success at the judging stand. 2 hours of parade.





It was a cool day, but each band seemed to have parents equipped with spray bottles to spray water in the mouths of the marchers--what is with parents today?





Today was the Alberta Art Hop. Nancy worked as a volunteer, helping close Alberta to traffic, removing a road-kill squirrel from the street, and, at the appointed hour, preparing the route for the parade. Today's was a half hour, and featured many bikes, lots of people on stilts including some dancing, and a few political candidates.

Neither Hillary nor Barack made a showing even though both are in Oregon. Bill and Chelsea didn't make it either. Nor did Michele Obama or her brother, the new basketball coach at Oregon State (I think the Beavers figured that if Obama could come from nothing to become the nominee, maybe his brother-in-law could win a few games...). There were a number of elderly there--one of them may have been John McCain, but I wouldn't recognize him unless he was hugging George W. Bush. An aside, last night while walking from the Heathman Hotel Happy Hour to Mio Gelato, Hillary's motorcade passed us on Broadway. We spied her in the SUV, but she was reading her Blackberry (no doubt a note from Bill) and didn't wave.


For my money, the Alberta Hop was more fun, but then the day was warm and sunny, and I'd been by the Mash Tun to check out their supply of IPA. It's a little less than it was before...