2015 Utah Trip Part 5-Freedom Days Parade

About 20 years ago I rode my pony Tiger in the Freedom Days Parade, but I have never seen the parade until this year.  The reason I have never seen it is to get seats along the route you have to camp out the night before.  These people were out at least 18 hours before the parade started.  Some people had their little kids with them.  I guess it works for some people, but that isn't for me.

But my dad was able to buy tickets to sit in reserved seats on the bleachers.  So we just had to show up the morning of.  Since getting up is early when you head west, Brian, the kids, and I went early to save seats for my sisters and brother in law.  (You get a seat on the bleacher with the tickets, but which seat you actually sit on depends on how early you get there).  We got their early enough we could park a couple blocks away, and we got decent seats.  We watched the Freedom Run, where around 6000 runners were racing.  Some were dressed up kind of fun, which kept everyone occupied.

After the race came the pre-parade, this was a lot of fun.  Batman drove by.

As well as some Star Wars characters.

And spiderman and black spiderman.

And this insane trampoline guy.  I kept waiting for him to bounce to a side and kill himself.  But he lived in front of us.

Then the parade started.  Darth Vader let in a bunch of storm troopers.  Evidently Darth Vader is American.

There were a few Macy's parade style balloons. The best part about them, was watching them further up the road limbo under street lights and wires.

They had a part for each war from WWI till today.  This one is for WWII.

 

They also had some vets in the parade.  These are from the Vietnam War.

 

 

They didn't have rodeo queens this year, but they did have some horses. 

 

 

And the city princesses.  The girls loved these.

 

 

 

And tons of fun floats.

 

 

And lots of characters.

We had a lot of fun.  It was a great parade, and we got out of there just as it started getting really hot.