It must be a political year

Ah, the fourth of July.

I was a little tired from being up late watching fireworks. After coaxing the cat from her hiding place and assuring her that there was not, in fact, a conspiracy to scare all animals and people into jumping on the next cruise ship out of town - some of the pyrotechnics were so loud the windows shook! - I was lulled to sleep by all the other people who wanted to shoot off sticks of dynamite and make loud noises until the wee hours.

Rumor has it that people who live in "the valley" - a whole 10 or so miles north - rent hotel rooms downtown so they can watch the fireworks and be ready for the parade. I mosied (mozied? mozzied? - you know what I mean) down the hill about 15 minutes to the start of the parade. I contemplated a stop at the coffee shop on the way, but the line was out the door and almost to the corner at the end of the block. Thank goodness I don't really need coffee! I wandered in search of my people and finally found some friendly faces in the crowd. We were in a spot from which I had yet to view the march, which was kind of fun. I wonder if someone's collected a statistic about how many pounds of saltwater taffy are hurled from the collective parade participants -- firemen, miners, politicians, kids, pugs, people with funny hats driving little cars, people on 4 wheelers, people on bikes, people walking tied to each other, people playing bagpipes, trumpets, base drums -- I guess some of those don't actually throw the candy themselves, but enough of them do that kids leave the parade with the mistaken idea that it's Halloween and not Independence Day!

You know some big issues are at the forefront of our Alaska consciousness when half the parade is political. This year, the big contender was the overwhelming presence of miners. Big trucks, people with mining outfits, big bulldozers (though there was one that probably wasn't a bulldozer - maybe Ethan can tell me what it was next time I see him - he knows way more about those kinds of things even though he is only 2), people ready to rescue, cut down trees to make new mines, etc. Quite the force!

Here's a sampling of a few other entriesThat's the governor, above, taking a picture -- one of her daughters is walking next to the car in the green and holding the governor's new baby.There's always the People for Peace with their colorful peace cranes.The Filipino dancers
I clearly should have taken some other photos - mainly the big truck things for Ethan to identify! Oh well, there's always next year!