This year, we took a drive up to "Mayberry, USA" (Mt. Airy) because we heard that they have a great parade that's not loaded down with a bunch of political junk; just a good, old-fashioned, small-town parade. And they were right. Having never been there, we didn't know quite what to expect, but it was a very nice little town. I will say that they LIVE off the Andy Griffith tourism stuff, but it's still not overdone.
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| The kids started their long, hot holiday with a fantastic red, white and blue berry parfait. |
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| Once at the parade site, we settled in to await the start. The boys were already getting hot. |
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| Emma looked tired and we hadn't even seen anything yet |
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| Olivia waited with barely restrained glee. |
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| Olivia waited as each car passed, hoping for some candy to be tossed out. She came home with quite a haul. |
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| Yep, that's really Aunt Bee. |
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| Ezra loved the big diesel trucks that were in the parade. |
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| There were a lot of very pretty classic cars. |
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| A very cool portable soda fountain. Too bad it wasn't stocked and open for business. |
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| There were even a couple of bluegrass bands. |
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| Ezra was excited about the firetruck right up until it blew its horn. It was loud enough to scare all of us. |
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| Even the livestock got dressed for the occasion. |
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| Olivia got her face painted. |
Later that afternoon, we had some fun and games with friends.
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| We only had 2 potato sacks, so we did head-to-head sprints. The bag was almost big enough for Olivia to get lost in, but she did really well. |
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| Rebecca took on a few of the kids and taught them important lessons in losing. |
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| Even the old guys got into the act. It's not as easy as I remember, but it was just as fun. |
