The never-ending parade

I checked out the Cherry Blossom parade for the first time this year. Even with a steady drizzle coming down, there was a pretty good-sized crowd gathered on Cherry Street for the start of the parade. The crowd on Mulberry Street was pretty thin, so if you're looking for a real parade ambiance, Cherry Street would be your best viewing location, but if you want to be able to see all of the floats, you should definitely head to Mulberry Street. You could even head out late to the parade and still get a prime viewing spot on Mulberry to watch everything go by. The only downfall with Mulberry is that everyone's run out of candy to toss by the time they get to you! I wandered over to Cherry Street and caught the national anthem being sung before the start - I didn't know parades kicked off with the anthem so that was an interesting surprise. Then I headed back to Mulberry with my umbrella and stood on one of the sidewalks to wait for the parade to make it's way around the corner.
C. Jack was in the first vehicle to come by, and then Charlie Bishop - wearing all pink (thank you Charlie) - was close behind.


The parade was a lot longer and bigger than I expected it to be, and I was most entertained by the little things, such as floats and cars getting stalled because of the dancing bands ahead of them, which gave people in the parade like Nancy Grace a chance to chat it up and have a good time with the crowd.


I really enjoyed the bands and the dancers, though some looked a little confused at times, but I'll ignore that since they have way more guts than I do to get out in public and dance in costume.


But I think my favorites of all were the API float with hairdressers and wigs, and the Chick-fil-A float featuring a pink cow.



Here's a look at the rest of the parade: