I Love a Parade

 Up early enough to catch a sunrise.  We wanted to get down to breakfast early before the tour bus crowd arrived.  We sat at a table with another couple who were from Mississippi.  They have a boat stored near here and were going to get it ready to spend the entire summer cruising Lake Michigan.  We told them we were from Illinois.  They told us they had been on the Illinois River and it was one of the most beautiful rivers to cruise on.  We left for Holland at 8:30 a.m. wanting to get a good parking space.  We were able to park in a parking garage close to downtown.  It was so early that there weren't many other people on the streets.

The squirrels here are black.

I think I need a smaller size.

We walked up and down both sides of the street, found our bleacher seats for the parade and decided to eat pizza for lunch at Crust 54.

This is a small deep-crust pizza.  It was very good.

One thing we noticed when we began to walk the street was that many people were here very early and had placed chairs, blankets, and tarps to hold their place for the parade.  I asked someone what time the people would have done this and they said they themselves were here at 6:00 a.m.  I have a picture of the street but for some reason, it will not download.

"Hear ye, hear ye.  Let the parade begin.  We were sitting in row one of a section of bleacher seats.  It was good to sit for the nearly two hour parade.

Here are the street cleaners who sweep the street clean before the parade begins.

This was called a children's parade and lots and lots of kids marched.  We were told that all the schools were closed at noon so the kids could be in the parade.  All the schools in the area were well represented in the parade.  There were also several band who marched.

Participating in the parade is a family affair as this picture shows.  This family posed in their Dutch clothes for the crowd

There were several groups of special education students.  They enjoyed smiling and waving to the crowd and the crowd responded with cheers and applause.

Not sure who this fellow was...maybe Santa?

There were lots of floats.  The businesses of the community supported the parade by participating in the parade.

This preschool group had the best ride.

No parade in Holland, Michigan would be complete without a wooden shoe.

I thought this carwash business had a creative float.  It is hard to see but the silver circles represent a drive-through car wash.  There is a kids car driving through the circles.

Even the dogs of the community participated in the parade.

I included this picture because it represents nearly half the pictures I took this afternoon at the parade.  I was sitting by a lady from Buffalo, New York.  She was a very nice lady and we enjoyed a nice conversation before the parade.  She loved to wave at the participants in the parade and because I was too quick taking pictures I would get a picture of her hand.  She would wave and I would snap a picture.  I have deleted all of the pictures except this one so I could remember the nice lady I sat by.  

We found a backroad between Grand Haven where we stayed and Holland.  It was a two-laned highway through beautiful trees and houses.  It was a lot less stressful because there was less traffic and it moved at a slower pace.  The road was called Lakeshore Drive although we only caught glimpses of Lake Michigan 5-6 times.

It was a very nice but tiring day.  We walked 3.6 miles.  The weather was beautiful.  We heard more than one local resident say that the 2025 Tulip Festival had the nicest weather in many years.  The tulips were at peak bloom.  We picked a good year to attend the festival.