Parading...

Something that I've found funny since returning home to MN for the summer (that I guess I never thought was weird before), is how every single tiny, little town (whether the population is 4000 or 647) has to have it's own festival.  The funnier part about it is that they all have to come up with some meaningful name for the festival.  Pipestone, the town I grew up in, calls theirs the "Watertower Festival", because apparently the old watertower in town is really old.  Seriously?  They couldn't come up with a more creative name than that?  And they don't even do anything to commemorate the old thing.  I think it's just an excuse to have a festival.  Some of my other favorite local festival names are Hobo Days, Hot Iron Days, and King Turkey Day:)

Anyway, during every festival there is a parade.   If you have not been to a rural town parade... you haven't lived;)   It starts out with every fire truck, police vehicle and ambulance that the town owns, followed by a long chain of collector cars carrying the mayor and other members of the local government.  Then come the "floats" (if you can call them that), they are basically hay wagons carrying every 4-H group, local business, church group, pageant winner, class reunion... every community organization that exists.  And they all throw candy, and not just a little candy.  The residents of the town line the streets in their lawn chairs, with many of the kids holding gallon-sized ice cream buckets, which by the end the parade are nearly full!  Oh, and how could I forget the tractors, 50% of the parade is made up of tractors, and probably bigger tractors than you knew existed. 

Well, my kids had their first experience with rural town parades this summer. My sister, Kris, is part of Pipestone's Active Living Committee (don't ask me what that is, I think that they try to get people to exercise more). So she invited Hayden and Ana to ride their bikes in the parade with her group.  They thought that was wonderful...

Sophie enjoyed sitting on the sidelines with Grandpa...

Another bonus about small towns is that you can snag your kids right out of the middle of the parade and have them enjoy watching the rest of the parade and collecting candy.  Rural life seriously makes me laugh...

Later the same day, the next town down the road happened to be having their festival as well.  My niece McKindra was in the royalty for the town pageant, so Ana and Sophie got to dress up and ride with her in that parade as well...

This time Hayden was on the side...

they threw out entire ice cream bars!

What a cultural treat we had!  Thanks rural MN for all of your random town festivals...

PS. I just realized that this is my 400th blog post!  Cheers, to all you bloggers out there...