Caught in a Parade

Even though it became cloudy and started to rain - surprise? - we went to Newport to go to Fred Meyer and maybe continue on to Florence down the coast. We ran into a detour just before town and at first, we thought maybe there was an accident that they were rerouting traffic around. It turned out to be the annual celebration in Newport called Loyalty Days. This is an annual 4 day event and we hit the day they had the parade. We are happy it turned out this way as we were able to drive on the Oceanside Drive that goes along the shoreline, through some beautiful neighborhoods, and past some really nice beach areas. One of the beach areas is called Agate Beach and we got a picture of this beach below that is the largest beach we've seen since we arrived:

Those little dots you see are people on the beach so you can see how huge it really is. We finally got to the end of the detour and came back out on the Highway 101. This is when we discovered the parade. We attempted to go back through town along the roads parallel to 101 to get back to Fred Meyer but had to stop a few blocks short. We parked and decided to watch the parade which was actually very exciting. There were nearly 100 floats in the parade and the street was lined with people through the entire town. Below are some shots of the parade:



There were high school bands and lots of classic cars among the parade entries and it was fun watching. We parked in a bank parking lot that was next to a McDonald's so we also got to try a couple Frappe's while we were there. All in all, it was a very pleasant surprise and a pleasant diversion.

We then went to Fred Meyer, picked up our goodies, and decided to head home. By then, it was getting late so we will save the trip to Florence for another day.

Back to work today - long day, with new hours. We will stay open to 6 PM now instead of 5 PM, and as a result, our hours are slightly staggered to compensate for the added time. Until tomorrow...