The Rose Bowl Parade----minor leagues compared to the Delano 4th of July Parade

That's Dell-uh-no. The next town over from the metropolis of Rockford. Billed as the biggest 4th of July Parade in MN. I got there an hour and a half before to claim a spot, and still had trouble landing some sidewalk space. MM and the kids, along with some friends, got there right before it started; but, they had to park a whole lot further away than I did. Here's the start.


Older the boys, the bigger the toys. I'd love to have one of these.

Grand Marshall---Jason Davis. He's a local tv personality who does a show called 'On the Road Again,' which highlights special interest stories and people in MN.

A MN parade has to have the obligatory big tractor. Not sure why, but I think it's a law.

The pride of Rockford. I always love to witness the royalty doing the 'prevent carpal tunnel' waves. I wonder who came up with that.

This is MM's absolute favorite part of the parade. You can actually hear her screaming and cheering a mile away, even above the roar of these go-carts. They do a precision driving act that is fun to watch.

Hot chicks on barstool go-carts. I imagine that alcohol was involved in drumming up this idea.


I know that guys will put motors on just about anything imagineable; but doing it on an over-sized grocery cart is odd. Coborn's is the local supermarket in Delano.

Now this I don't find odd at all. I might even try making one of these myself.

I thought Gino would appreciate a shot of some more of the hot chicks in this parade. I think they were tossing out their phone numbers instead of candy.

The highlight of our day. This is our MN republican senator--Norm Coleman. He was going to walk right by, when suddenly he was drawn to some wild screaming and whooping from the woman sitting next to me; who happened to be Mocha-momma. He beelined right to her and shook our hands. His entourage were all wearing t-shirts that had a circle on the front with just "Norm, 08" in it. I told him he needed to get his people to come up with something a little spiffier, and he replied he'd get on it, maybe get a contest going. If he does do something like that, you'll know where he got the idea.

This was an unexpected part of the parade---Rosie O'Donnell made a guest appearance.

Can any parade really be considered complete without Elvis. I think not.

If nothing else, seeing this certainly made the whole 2 hours sitting under the blazing hot sun worthwhile.

Not sure where the other guys from ZZ-Top are, but he made it.

This certainly reminds me of my youth. Not the guy on the cycle. The kid in the red hat and red shirt, thinking to himself, "this guy's a freaking nutcase."

This is just a sampling, they had probably over a hundred different units in the parade. I imagine the participants were just trashed at the end. It was around 90 degrees, and there was no breeze to speak of. We went right to the pool after we got home and cooled off. I think we're going to pass on the fireworks tonight, they're past my bedtime and I have to work in the morning. (it's a bear getting old, I remember the days when I'd party until 4am and get to work by 8)