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This lady is seemingly always on her bike. I see her around town nearly daily, all year long. She doesn’t wait for a holiday to decorate her bike either. A day like the 4th of July is her day to shine in the parade, doing what she does best.
I think you are OK making a left here if this is the only oncoming traffic.
The guy lining us up at the parade said to me, “We’ll have you follow the bagpipes.” Perhaps I didn’t smile. He paused and said, “unless you want to follow the Macaroni’s Band…” After over an hour of hearing the bagpipers rehearse and warm up, while waiting for the parade to start, we gladly took the latter.
The parade route, before it begins, tingles with excitement. People are not yet tired from the heat. The day is still somewhat cool in fact. The median is lined with American flags and the Ashland Springs Hotel can be seen in the distance on the right. The fancy (mostly red) cars will hold the dignitaries and be at the start of the parade. Liberty Street Park (also known as Triangle Park) fills the area to the back left.
I thought I’d mix things up in this series by jumping forward 12 hours to some fireworks that happened later on the 4th. We watched them from the hill just below the Science Building on the SOU campus.
I tried a bunch of different options for taking pictures of fireworks on my LX3. Once again, the setting that worked the best was the default “ia” mode. The SCN Fireworks mode didn’t come out as good.
Alex’s is another restaurant in town. They were the parade entry right behind us. The many pictures I have of them has nothing to do with the “eye candy” involved and everything to do with their proximity to our location. 😉 More photos of Alex’s Gourmet Marching Band (or, more accurately, the dancing girls in front of the band) available on request.
Being in the parade provided a unique vantage point for taking pictures. I’ve shown you The Black Sheep before, but it is funner this way with dozens of people in front of it, smiling at you, as you go down the parade route in a truck pulling a float.
I ended up with loads and loads of decent photos from the Fourth of July festivities. I’ll feature them in random order over the next few weeks.
Today’s picture is of the Macaroni’s band. Macaroni’s is a restaurant in downtown Ashland. One of the band members got lost on Mt. McLaughlin the night before, didn’t turn up until morning, but still played in the band for the parade. Now that is dedication.
I told you a couple days ago that the parade in town for the fourth is a big deal. So big that the First Couple couldn’t get a good spot on the road and had to stand on a roof instead.
You may recognize this residence from a prior entry. They put penguins up there for winter. I’ll have to remember to take a picture of that scene someday.
I got to help design and build one of the entries in yesterday’s parade. The float was for my daughter’s girl scout troop. The above picture is what it looked like before the finishing decorations were applied.
And here is the mostly finished product. Notice the fish on the wheel. They go round and round as the parade entry moves down the street. Cool, eh?