Day #5: What a Grand Parade...and More!

Oh, what a beautiful morning!  The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and it's a wonderful day for a parade.  Today is the last day of Alpenfest and we're ready to wrap this thing up, but we've still got plenty to report for the day!  Prepare yourselves for a final look at Alpenfest 2001, starting off with the Grand Parade.

It was another scorcher; honestly, the weather is simply unbelievable up here!  Today it was above ninety degrees and everyone was sweating and complaining, but in six months there'll be four feet of snow on the ground and we'll all be freezing and complaining, so it's a lose-lose situation.  To top it all off, most people around here don't have air conditioners in their homes simply because it's like fifteen degrees about half the year, so you basically spend a lot of your time during the summer either in the car or the grocery store!  Anyways, we watched the parade...
 

At first we thought that we were in trouble again, but it turned out that they were just starting the parade. And no, that's not a real gun the passenger is pointing out the window!  Or at least it's not loaded...

Next came the music of the high school marching bands, although we were told that it wouldn't be very nice to make fun of them here.  Luckily we didn't manage to get any really good pictures of them anyways, and don't tell anyone we said this, but they were actually pretty good.  We figured it probably has something to do with the music they're allowed to play.  Looking back into our band years, as limited as they were, all we ever played was classical crap from dead European guys.  These bands were playing Smoke on the Water, Low Rider, and the coolest song to ever be played by a marching band - Secret Agent Man!  What ever happened to The Ventures, anyways?
 

It takes a really close look to see, but this float is actually supposed to be a giant margarita glass from the local Mexican joint.  There are some things that flowers just can't represent.

Keep in mind that we were dying out there in the heat, and we were just sitting there watching the whole thing!  We can only imagine what all these people in uniforms must be going through right now, sweaty and miserable, and being forced to stay in step above all of that.  The only way you'd catch us in one of these things is if AC was an option - more on that thought later!
 

Talk about a punishment! Which is worse?  Being forced to wear the stuff to the left and sweat your head off, or wearing skirts like these other guys in public? At least they're roomy...

This part of the state is filled with three types of music: polka, country, and other.  Unfortunately, this is the time when all of the polka lovers come out of the woodwork to celebrate something or other, so we're pretty much forced to grin and bear it.  At least it's only a week and besides, it can be kinda catchy!
 

"Ricola!"

Speaking of polka, this reminds us of a little story from several years ago.  It was around the time of April Fools day and one of the local radio stations decided that it would be a great gag to change their format for the holiday.  The first program of the day came on at 6:00 in the morning, during which they began playing nothing but polkas all day long!  As an added bonus, they continued this new programming through the next several days because April 1^st had happened to fall on a Friday that year.  Oddly enough, the station had a difficult time reverting back to their original format the following Monday due to the enormous flood of calls praising their new choice!

Now here's the representation from our local oldies station, 101.3 FM.  Although other radio stations opted to actually play the music that can be heard on the air, these guys just drove around because let's face it: PT Cruisers were cool...a year ago.

We're just gettin' started!  Click on the arrow below to proceed to more parade coverage on the next page.