County Fair Parade

All of my growing up years, we lived in a city or in the suburbs of a city, but I always knew I wasn't a city girl. I always felt like a was a small town girl at heart, even though I'd never lived in one. When I met Marty, he told me about the little community he was from, and I couldn't wait to live here. The town has about 550 people in it, but we have 3 other little towns around us that attend our schools and make up our community.

And we have an olde tyme county fair here every year. We have arts and crafts and homegrown produce and canned and baked goods. We have a livestock show and sale and two horse shows (which I have put on myself for 13 years now). We have fireworks a dance and a junior rodeo. And we also have a County Fair Parade....

This year was the biggest and best parade anyone could remember. It starts with this gentleman:


Whenever there's a town event, like the fair or the 4th of July, he mounts this big speaker on the roof of his car and drives around town (sometimes at indecent hours of the morning) and lets everyone know what's going on. He also announces for all the town parades (we have 3 during the year) and he has the voice of a baptist preacher.

Our parade is held on the main street of town, which is also the main highway running through our part of the state. The sheriff's department closes off the highway for about 20 minutes while the parade runs up to one end of town and back down to the other end. I'm sure it's very annoying to highway travelers, but I think it's really cool.

Our parade this year started out with the flag carried horseback - as always - this year by a young lady named Cheyenne, who a few weeks ago broke her neck and received several other serious injuries during a fall off a horse, and successive trampeling. She broke the same vertebrae in her neck that paralyzed Christopher Reeve, so we are all glad to see her up and about and doing so well. Go Cheye.


Her brother is leading a riderless horse who belonged to a young man from our community who recently died after being hit by a baseball during team practice. He was the oldest son of a large local ranching family, was a great kid and was much beloved by all who knew him. It brought tears to our eyes to see his riderless horse being led through the parade route by one of his best friends.


My good buddy Dennis, patriarch of the MacDonald ranch, had four wagons and horse teams in the parade this year which was very cool. Dennis owns many, many wagons, carts, coaches and buggies and I got to go to his place a while back and take a look at all of them. He has old fire engines, stage coaches, antique prairie schooners and fancy doctors buggies - about any kind of buggy you can imagine. This one is his fancy prom buggy - neat, huh.


This one is driven by his son in law. I think they call it a people hauler. :0)

And this one by Jeff, one of Marty's cousins. Another people hauler, or hay wagon, or utility wagon of some kind.

And this one is Dennis' 11 year old grandson, Stetson, a really good kid. He's been driving since he was 6.


The teams were so neat and lovely and wonderful, I couldn't help taking several pictures of them. I won't post them all, but here's a couple more, just for me.

Aren't they cool?! I think he's bought most of his teams and harness from the Amish.

Here's Dennis in his grand coach, driving the grand marshall of the parade and her family and friends.


And here's another lovely 4 legged beastie. She's the Brinkerhoff's family milk cow.

I'll bet when she woke up this morning, she never imagined she'd be marching in a parade!


Good girl, Daisy or Bessie or whoever you are.

My kids got to ride on the top of a fire truck and throw candy, which was a first for them and loads of fun. The new fire house is now at the end of our street so our kids feel a bit proprietary about our town firetrucks. And they got cute little plastic fireman hats (which I later had to sneak into the trash).



I thought we had some pretty good entries this year. Like the Hoyt family with their "California Adventures" float. Pretty good for our little parade! The theme was making memories, and this family is known for their trips to the theme parks of CA. I need to ask them where they got the teacup! Perhaps they made it, some pretty handy people in that family.



There was also the Reese family with many of their kids and grandkids onboard.

The baseball team in a gorgeous red Caddy - uh guys, it might be a good idea for a few of you to walk along side. Just my opinion.


And the funniest one - our bishop in his son's restored pick up. Anthony, his son, is on a mission in Canada and left his precious truck behind. Obviously Dad is helping himself to it.


Tee hee hee.... (click on the photo to enlarge in and read the poster.)


I know that was a lot of photos, but that was actually only a drop in the bucket compared to all the ones I took. I'm proud of this good community and feel very blessed to be a member of it.

Fair Horse Show photos to come!