Images from Astoria’s Bicentennial Parade

Happy 200th Birthday Astoria! I used to dislike parades. Now I think they are okay. They are better when you don’t have to march in them, while playing a heavy set of drums, or waving a flag, while also trying to avoid horse pucky. All of which I did do in my younger years.

Today, I learned that lots of small towns have their own festivals for flowers or leaves or fish, and they all have floats with dancing young women on them. Some of them came from far, far away.

I think one of these gals was auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance.

I know it sounds like I’m being snarky. And I am, sort of. But I’d like to see kids on floats because they won an essay contest, or they offered a thoughtful solution to a local civic issue, or they competed for most volunteer hours. Perhaps those wouldn’t be exciting floats to watch, but I would totally clap for kids who won the science fair.

I know, I know, beauty queens and dancing girls bring the crowds.

There was an over-50 marching band and I think that is the best idea ever.

Drums on wheels! Best idea ever! We need more parades!

We got ourselves a fitting perch in front of Fort Astoria to watch the parade go by.

We also had a nice view of the river.

I know it’s going to sound like I’m continuing to be snarky, but I’m not: I love bagpipes. I really do.

Bagpipes somehow make me feel nostalgic, but I’m not sure why.

This guy was “Lay-Z-Boy” skiing behind a furniture truck. Wouldn’t you, if you could?

More dancing flower festival girls.

More bagpipes. I like them. I’m not kidding.

The Mid Summer Scandinavian Fest Float! Already with next year’s dates! So looong from now.

I had to try to capture these faces. Kids aren’t always good at pretending to have fun.

These young ladies were waving, not dancing. All the way from New Westminster in British Columbia. This was a pretty impressive float.

Not kidding about the bagpipes, by the way.

These are not the same bagpipes over and over. There were three separate pipe bands. Why do I like them so much? Is it the tartan? The argyle? Maybe I’ll try to start playing bagpipes. Since this is Astoria, not Portland, and since I can’t ride a unicycle, I’d likely get arrested for noise nuisance.

Spokane is far away too. I like lilacs. I didn’t even get photos of all of the flowery beauty queen floats.

It’s pretty awesome this guy took time off from hanging out on SE Hawthorne in Portland so he could be in the parade.

Below, a woman with a fish pillow, a trapper, and Darth Vader. Why not?

Ponies are cute.

Sammy the Salmon from Issaquah Salmon Days.

A giant log.

Riding a tire. Sure, I’d do it, too.

And finally, we see dozens of these go by our house every day, except they don’t throw us candy.

They didn’t have these in the small town parades of my childhood.

So, this was a pretty bad ass parade. I loved all of it, except you know, the lack of science fair kids dancing on floats.

I think we totally ought to have nationwide smart/nerd contests. Come on. Imagine the floats they’d make. It would be awesome.