Countless Tomorrows: Day's of '47 Parade

Saturday night, my mom called and ask if I wanted to go to SLC and see the Day's of '47 Parade. I want to be a big fan of parades, but the small local ones are quite boring. The cheerleaders on the firetruck. Sometimes a marching band. The electric company drives a truck through. The local dance company rides through on a trailer. The beauty queens in the back of a truck. To me that is BORING. Every few years their might be one float. Other then that it just feels like a brag fest of "look at me, look at me. In my pretty dress. In my scandalous dance costume. Look at me."

But I do like parades. Every Thanksgiving I try to watch the parade on TV. And some years, when I remember, I watch the Day's of '47 parade on TV. I love the floats. I love all the colors. I love the marching bands that dance while playing and I LOVE the color guard that is with them. They are one of my favorite parts of the parade. I love all the cops on their motorcycles. I love the pride you feel with service men of our country come by and how every one stands to applaud them.

Since she was suggesting a FUN parade, I said yes. The parade is SLC is a big deal. People camp out all night long to make sure they get a good seat. We decided to stay in a hotel just one block down and take a chance by just setting our chairs out and hoping they didn't walk off. As we were driving around looking for a good spot, we spotted an older lady, a cute grandmotherly lady. We decided to ask her to watch our seats, even offered to pay her (but she wouldn't take our money). Her grand kids love the parade, so each year she goes out the afternoon before to save a spot. They eventually show up to hold the spot, and she goes to sleep in her car. Now that is dedication!

We slept quite comfortably at our hotel. The next morning we went to our spot, about 2 hours before the parade was to start. We got to the spot where we had put our chairs, but only my blue one was there. My mom's nicer chair was gone. She finally spotted it a bit down the road and went to get it. As I sat the stuff in my blue chair I noticed, my name wasn't on it anymore. It wasn't really my chair. The sweet grandma had moved our chairs so we could have a front room seat for the parade. Awesome! I also learned during the parade, she was a great narrator. She seemed to know everyone in the parade.

The parade started off with cops on their motorcycles. They were amazing! A few minutes into their routine and the grandmotherly lady asked if I noticed anything odd. I had, but didn't dare say anything. They were each wearing fake mustaches. Some looked natural, but others you could tell were not real.

I had to take this picture just for my husband just so he could see the guns.

After the policeman and the flag, there was a black car. On the side facing us, the window was rolled up and you could see a lady. Then I read the poster and got all excited. I sat and stewed for a minute that we were on the wrong side of the street. Then I suddenly leaped from my chair and ran across the street and ran forward to get a picture of President Thomas S. Monson. I was in shoes of fashion, not built for running. I'm surprised (and grateful) that I didn't trip and fall.

I ended up with well over 200 pictures of the parade. I took at least one picture of every entry, but usually two. I've tried hard to narrow it down so their isn't so many pictures. I could do a slide show, but when I print my blog book at the end of each year, those don't print out. So here is my favorite pictures.

I'm usually a fan of palomino horses (which you will hopefully learn more about in the very near future), but I thought this gray horse was the prettiest horse in the parade.

One thing I noticed, and really liked, was the beauty queens. I can't remember where they were all from, but on just about all of their floats, they were similar dresses. Usually the Queen was in a dress of a different color and the attendants were in matching dresses. I'm not sure why I liked that, but I did. Maybe that's another thing I don't like about our small town parade. "Look at me in my flashy expensive dress that barely covers me."

Just as the beauty queen float from above got past us, it started to smoke. I doubt it made it all the way through the parade.

I love the color guard and flag twirlers with marching bands. For two summers, when I was young, I was in the color guard and I LOVED it. The 2nd year they almost didn't have one, but I stepped up and took charge. I think it was the summer before my 9th grade year, so I was pretty young. But I choreographed the entire thing on my own. The 1st year was a group of older girls my own age, but that 2nd year it was younger girls. I had so much fun. The next year that band teacher left. I really don't know if the new band teacher did a marching band, but I guess even if he did, he didn't do a color guard or I would've been on it.

I was quite sad that it wasn't channel 2 news hosting the parade. If they had been, I would've stalked them to get my picture with them. Instead it was hosted by channel 5. For a bit of the parade one of the people was in front of us interviewing people in the parade.

This band leader was so fun to watch. He was jumping and dancing all over the place. He was the happiest, most energetic person in the parade.

The horse on the right was NOT happy to be in the parade. He kept trying to jump and turn, but couldn't because he was yoked with the other horse. But you could still tell he wasn't happy at all.

One of my favorite floats. Each time the fisherman lifted his pole, the fish would come up with it.

Wow, they really tricked out their truck in parade garb.

I guess these horses didn't like the parade either. After they passed us, they must have tried to stop or turn around, because I heard some people gasped, and looked down the road to see the wagon they were pulling backing up into a jackknife position. I thought it was going to tip over, but they got it straightened out and headed on their way down the route.

Andrew, I took this picture just for you so you could know BYU was in the parade. I could care less though. Don't worry Ute fans, they had a float there too, it was later in the parade so its down a ways.

More unhappy horses. This pair kept leaning into each other, almost like they were drunk. But really, I think they were just unhappy. And really, if I was in a horse, I don't think I'd be either. Parades are loud!

We were nearer to the start of the parade route. This float didn't make it very far before it started smoking.

Float Doctor to the rescue! There were several truck with the sole purpose of rescuing floats. Grandmotherly lady told me that if the float is a hazard they get it off the route. But if its just a simple break down, the truck will pull it through the parade.