Thursday, September 9, 2010

Golden days Parade

This past Golden Days week Rachel, Sue, Kieran, Lola and I braved the rain and headed out to stake out our spot on the Golden Days parade route. None of us had spectated this event before and we didn't quite know what to expect. It did not disappoint!


This parade is reported to be the biggest in the state of Alaska. I believe it! It was 90 minutes of fire engines, army vehicles, bands, tiny cars, pets, political groups, big AK politicians (more on that later), religious groups, floats and candy throwing!

By the time the parade ended Lola and Kieran each had an impressive load of loot to carry back to the car.
After the parade we moved on to the open house at the newest and biggest fire station in town. Kieran was a little overwhelmed with all the people and fire fighters. He has a book that describes all the important parts of a firehouse and the important job that fire fighters do. We had free reign everywhere EXCEPT the top of the poll. We learned that this is the tallest firehouse poll in the country! It WAS pretty tall.

Of course we had to check out the engines.

And we took advantage of the free lunch, complete with chips and drinks. Just as we were finishing our hot dogs and generic high fructose corn syrup drinks we were approached by none other than...
...our good senator Lisa Murkowski! She was actually responding to Rachel taking a candid photo of her while she was getting talked up by a couple of other constituents. When she was done with them she bee-lined it to our table (to the chagrin of the people actually waiting in line to talk to her!) and said "You can't take a picture of me without getting in the picture with me!" It was a little startling! We hadn't met her before and we were both impressed with her very genuine and warm persona. If I were republican I'm sure I would have voted for her in the primary...we'll see if she can stay in the game after November. If she and Joe split the Republican vote and a Democratic senator is elected, so much the better. You're nice Lisa, but nice isn't enough for me ignore your environmental record!

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