Sunday, June 8, 2008

They Don't Call Us the Rose City for Nothing...









This weekend started the Rose Festival in Portland. Lots of goings-on including parades, races, dispays, and port visits by the US and Canadian Navies and the US Coast Guard. Floats decorated with lots of beautiful flowers, however, a lot of roses in the parade came from growers in South America. Harumph!

We met up with our friend Anne and toured the waterfront, although we didn't wait in line to see the US or Canadian Navy--actually, the Canadian Navy wasn't accepting visitors. The US Navy was, if you submitted to a search. Lots of security around our Navy--none around the Canadians or the Coast Guard. Big displays from the Army trying to enlist people--$40,000 cash to enlist and $70,000 in college benefits. The price of a life, I guess.

We did see the only remaining functional PT boat, although, as you can see in the picture, it's not actually in the water, but on a barge. That's OK by me as the only functional PT sailors are about 85-90 years old and it's pretty amazing that their props are still spinning...




We also saw a T Rex on a float. It doesn't make it into Ronna's BIG Things class, in my opinion, and it had only a half-hearted effort at being anatomically correct...






And we saw Limey's --a British food booth at the Saturday/Sunday Market--the only food booth with no line. The Banger Rolls were, well, hot.

1 comment:

Ronna said...

Hey didn't you have some sort of "rule" about big things anyhow...like the polar bear I posed with in Cochrane. You thought it wasn't big enough as compared to the real thing...
That T-Rex looks life size, eh?
So no, you're right. He wouldn't make it in my Big Things list!!