Readlyn Grump Days

This morning was the Readlyn Grump Days parade. Readlyn is a small town 7 miles east of Denver with the motto "857 friendly people and 1 old grump". It is a high honor to be selected as the "Grump". For such a small town they sure have a LONG parade! It was almost a mile to walk from our parking spot to the line-up spot. We were #46 of approx. 100 entries.
We got to walk with the Bremer County GOP float and the famous duct tape elephant. :o) Once we got moving it took an hour to walk the parade route and that was hardly stopping at all. It was probably close to 2 miles long. We had no idea how long it would be, so we ran out of notepads to hand out half way through. Luckily, that also means the people were more spread out, so Austin was able to shake almost everyone's hand. It was a bit too long for Emily, though. After dragging and dropping various decorations from her wagon, Austin ended up carrying her while shaking hands for the last 8 or so blocks (see video in player). Then it was another mile hike back to where our van was parked. Whew! It was a good time, though. We had lots of help and it was a beautiful day. We enjoyed having a semi-pro drum line as the entry behind us. It provided a lot of entertainment for Emily and made you want to walk in step. ;o) The same marching geese we saw last week in LeMars were three entries ahead of us. They only made it for half the parade route, though. We passed them taking a "drink break".