I love a parade ??

One of the other things that my job entails is helping plan and put together staff to attend parades during the year. Now most of these parades are during the spring/summer, but after starting my job I noticed a couple of them on the schedule for last week. I didn't have any information about the parade in Auburn and limited info on the one in Garrett. I was trying to ask around the building to see if we had done this parade before or if we didn't, if it was worth doing it but no one could give me an answer. I was all ready to just skip this parade, but just as I was getting ready to cancel I received all of the information that I needed.. nuts.. So I decided to just make it as simple as possible. I figure I would grab mom's convert able, pop the top down, and have Penny (our pig mascot) ride in the back. I also decided to blow up some balloons to hand out along the parade and also to give us a little logo visibility since we were all in winter jackets. So the day of the parade it's snowing.. crap... I can't put the top down in a snow storm and I can't get the mascot costume wet. I am going to cancel, bu we had told them we would be there so I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I ran home to grab the car from my mom and headed back up to Auburn. Wouldn't you know it I get behind a guy going 45 miles per hour on Tonkel and get caught by a train coming into town. I have been getting caught by this train numerous times and also get stuck behind some yahoo going well below the speed limit, so I am starting to take 69 instead. Anywho, by the time I get back to town the snow has stopped and it's a clear night. I decide to have the mascot "suit up" and we headed over to the beginning of the parade with the top down. It was quite the show with our mascot in the back seat and me blowing up balloons from the truck. Of course the wind has picked up which made already close to freezing temperatures even colder. I was told when I got this job that I wouldn't have any problems getting volunteers for parades and events, but I would beg to differ. Besides myself and the mascot there was only 3 other people. I am thinking the other people are fair weather paraders. The plan was to have me drive the mascot and the other people pass out the balloons and some candy along the route. We take off and go down a couple of streets to almost no people. I am thinking that it was a mistake to do this parade, but then the number of people start to pick up. The parade is moving at a very fast pace. I thought that it would slow down a little, but it didn't so I ended up loosing the rest of the group as they stopped to pass out balloons and candy. I tried to slow down as much as I could but the group in front of me kept pulling away. We turned a corner to a huge crowd of people so it ended up being a very good PR move for us, but I will be better prepared next year. The last parade that I was in was high school so there is a definite learning curve.
The next one was in Garrett on Friday. Supposedly the branch manager had everything under control, but I thought I would head over and see if this parade was worth the $135 entry fee (it wasn't). I get over there and help the mascot "suit up" again and we walk over to a large horse trailer. They decorated the trailer with some decorations, but there needed to be alot more as well as more lights on it. I blew up more balloons to hang on the trailer, but that was about all I could do. We loaded up into the trailer and they hitched up some horses to pull the wagons. Again it was freakin cold. I should have learned from Auburn earlier in the week, but I was driving the car so it wasn't that bad. So we all load into the trailer with 7 people including the mascot and pull out along with 19 other trailers. You know the funny things about horses is that you can't control their speed that well, so we went fast we went slow, and we came to a dead stop numerous times for whatever reason. The trailers had to deal with cars cutting in and around the parade as people tried to get around it which was dangerous and a huge pain. People were scattered along the route. The trailer in front of us was throwing candy to the crowd so when the kids were searching for the candy in the dark they didn't see the mascot in our trailer at all. Of course it was dark in our trailer too and it was hard to see the mascot. Before we knew it we were on Main st. and past the "judging" stand. Then a right turn and the parade was over. Well it was almost over as we had to take the looooonnnnngggg cooooolllllldddd ride back to the starting point which seemed like it took forever. We got back and quickly dedecorated the float and loaded up. IF (and it's a huge if) we do this parade next year I will have to get involved in the decoration of the float or at least make sure there is enough lighting on it.
That should be it until spring for parades..I think they will be more fun then.