July 4th Parade

Well, a week late but I am finally uploading my pictures from the 4th of July parade.

We go every year because it's one of the biggest parties in Park City. This year was especially big because the 4th fell on a Sunday. Huh? How does that work? Park City is the only town in Utah that decided that celebrating the 4th on the 4th was allowed on church day. Not only did everyone in Park City show up, it drew from all over the Salt Lake valley.

In order to get some chairs on the street in a primo location, I had already driven down at 5:30 and walked home. This not only gave us good seats, it gave us a car parked close by for the drive home. At 7:30 I returned to run the 5k with 1,000 other people including the Covaleski's and two of their guests.

Julie and I walked down that morning with our moms. You can see everyone is in long sleeves. Definitely one of the colder July 4ths, but at least it didn't snow. It has several times in the past.



Eventually the gang grew. We met the Schumacher's, the Lee's, the Covaleski's and their guests from the DC area.



Notably absent this year were the Benson's. Bill was in charge of building a float for the Park City Ski Resort. He, Loris, and numerous of my hosting buddies had spent a lot of time constructing the float and prepping for the event. This year's parade theme was "Silver to Ski" or something like that. It meant you were supposed to show the town's heritage transitioning from a silver mining town to a ski town.

This is the mining gang. They borrowed historically accurate costumes covering both the miners and the hard working saloon girls. There were lots of both back in the 1890s.



Bill and Loris, with a back drop of the skiing part of the float. If you ski Park City, you might recognize the bras and Mardis Gras beads in the tree.



Here you can see the saloon girls (Debbie and Manette). I think the theme for the ladies was to flash those fishnet stocking if you want to win "best float".



The other ladies (Loris, Alison and Cindy) from the other side. You can see the two miners (Steve and Buzz) at the entrance to the Comstock Mine. The mine was handy because they kept their coolers in there. While very family friendly, a lot of alcohol gets consumed on parade day before 11:00 am.



And then we have the skiing portion of the float including a snow boarder, two skiers and a ski lift.



The great news is that out of about 80 floats, the PCMR entry won, hands down. Yeah team!! What do you win? Mostly pride and satisfaction.

The parade included the normal bands, horse-drawn carriages, convertibles and such. I always try to find the things that are unique to Park City or just amuse me.

Here we have the Glee Club. I started by asking myself why the car is decorated to look like something killed in Texas. Worse, the girls all marched along in costume, but not once did they sing. At all. Ever. Maybe they should watch the TV show Glee and pay more attention.




Then we have the group from the Montage Hotel. If you have been to our house lately, this is the big beast being built up at Deer Valley. It is supposed to open in December and has been a huge construction project for the past two years. They dressed appropriately.



A meditation group marching in a parade just seems a little contradictory. Glad they didn't put much thought into costumes, a float, or anything else for that matter.



Our Park City High School band. We need more bands in the parade, but it was Sunday after all.



This is the part that cracked me up. Like a finely honed group of elite athletes, they had a dad walking along with squirt bottles. They would just open their mouths like a fish breathing in the open air, and the dad would come squirt them full of liquids. They never had to miss a step. Perhaps they had alcohol like everyone else?



We see the Solar Saucer around town all the time. It is a rolling DJ stand that travels around plays music powered by the sun. It is a big hit at Burning Man, which is definitely on my Bucket List.




The musical Hair is playing at the Egyptian. I guess dressing up for the parade was pretty easy.



You can't just be a spectator. Jim Covaleski joins in and gets to belly dance with one of the parade participants.



... and his wife Kathy, who has been taking a lot of karate lately, gets to smash through a board.



Rob is our trouble maker this year. He decided that the best idea was to blow up some small balloons (just air), yell "water balloon!" and toss it at someone. Since real water balloons aren't that uncommon on parade day, it gets quite a reaction.



The three parade beauties were excellent targets for Robbie's mischief. You can see the orange balloon heading at them and the reaction of the young lady on the left.



Now she realizes that the water balloon floated safely to the ground.



Julie's mom got Robbie back at the end of the day. She walked up close and just tossed a balloon. He ducked, just like everyone else.

My lovely little neighbor Hannah was also marching in the parade. Her mom, Sally, got chopped in the picture. Sorry Sally, but as Hannah will tell you, it's about Hannah.



The Curling Club (team? group? flock?) had a clever idea with curling stones on rollers and sweepers.



This guy makes it every year. I have no idea who he is or whether he lives in Park City, but he always has his big unicycle and his happy parrot.



And it can't be Park City without a giant snow groomer driving down the street. Not terribly clever or attractive, but it could be quite handy at keeping the other groups moving along.



The day was chilly, but I think it was the best parade we have seen here. I know it was definitely the biggest. The fireworks that nice were impressive as always. We found a new place to watch from that isn't quite as involved as climbing a water tower in the dark.