I love a parade

Our parade doesn't change much, and yet it's different every year. And every year, it's wonderful.

Red, white, blue, green, gold

 Doesn't every Main Street have huge steel bins at the far end?

 Lining up on the shady side of the street.

Reflections in the window of the Abstract Office.

 Young patriot

Sirens blaring

 Waiting for the candy to be tossed

It may be an ugly fiberglass pheasant, but it's OUR ugly fiberglass pheasant.

 Every year, for as long as I can remember here, kids have ridden in this train.

 The latest in hair styles.

 Big honkin' tractor.

And of course, bringing up the rear, the horsies (always at the end of the parade... for obvious reasons).

4th of July Parade

It's always different and yet always the same...

 This never fails to amuse me- I hope they never synchronize the clocks

 Yeah, it's an arty picture of a pinwheel, but I still like how it came out.

 Flags and loud guns. I hate loud noises.

 More flags.

 Motorcycles are a new addition- a nice one.

 Fire trucks with sirens blaring.

 Old fire trucks with no sirens.

Little kids in the barrel train.

 Flat bed trailers with Boy Scouts.

 Cool vintage autos.

 Shriners in small comical vehicles.

 Big new tractors. And I do mean big!

 Hot rods!

 Little girls in costumes!

 More flags.

 This is called a Terragator. It's HUGE!

 No parade is complete without the giant fiberglass pheasant.

 Pretty girls waving.

 Hell if I know what this is about. I'll do some sleuthing.

And horsies at the end. Always horsies at the end.

And this country of ours, it's not all that it should (or could) be, but it's pretty darn amazing, and breathtakingly beautiful. Happy 4th of July!

Small Town Holidays

I've written about our 4th of July celebrations before. Several times. This year's was no different.

The clocks still aren't synchronized.

Flags

Boy Scouts

Old farm equipment

Class Reunion floats

New farm equipment

Fiberglass pheasants

Pretty girls in convertibles

Track-tor

???

Horsies

Fun at the fairground

And Fireworks!

It was a hot and sticky, but lovely day!

Everything a small town 4th of July Parade should be...

The clocks still don't match (and neither was correct).

Flags

Soldiers

Fire trucks, sirens wailing

Ambulances (the purple things are latex gloves, which were tossed out the window to all)

Old, small farm equipment

Large, new farm equipment

Pretty girls in convertibles

Old cars

Fiberglass mascots

Corvettes

whatever the heck this is

and horsies.

Doesn't get any better than that.