Hippies On Parade

I'm about a week behind on this post but the photos are too good to just dump the whole post. Last Sunday was All Species Day in Montpelier...or Montpeculiar because on All Species Day, the town certainly makes a solid claim to its nickname.

Here's the official description and schedule of events for the day:

Details: All are invited to participate. Come dressed as your favorite species, celebrate our interdependence with one another and welcome the arrival of spring.

Schedule of the days event - Free

Noon: Calling All Species opening performance, Hubbard Park, Soccerfield
12:30 pm: All Species Circus, Old Shelter, Hubbard Park
1 pm: Parade leaves from Winter Street Gate, Hubbard Park
1 pm: Performance by River Rock School Children on Spring Street Bridge; Samba dancing and parading continues down Main Street and State Street, arriving at the Statehouse Lawn
2-3pm Birth of Spring Pageant: Statehouse lawn, performances with dancing, singing, puppet pageantry and more.

Oh, I can still smell the patchouli oil in the air. Seriously, we actually had a lot of fun. We got down to the statehouse lawn around noon because someone had told me the parade started around that time. I didn't know there an hour of festivities up in the park before they started marching. And, for some stupid reason, I failed to factor in "hippie time". Why I ever thought this would start on time, I have no idea.

Thankfully, it's pretty easy to kill a few hours running around downtown and the statehouse lawn with the kids. They kept asking were the animals were but in general were pretty cool with the long wait. Finally, around 2:30pm, the parade reached the statehouse.

The parade was largely made up of kids in their homemade costumes and adults in their very serious "I Am a [fill in favorite animal] Today" costumes. My favorite was the Cats on Broadway reject. It had a part proud...part bitter look to it.

They then did the maypole which my kids loved. It's one of those simple activities that kids love to do.

The final thing was the ceremony which seemed to wed different species. I'm sure there was more to the symbolism than I was able to decypher but I was busy trying to keep up with the little ones to be able to pay much attention.

Overall, it was a wacky hippie day but a lot of fun and a good chance to hang out with some friends in beautiful sunshine. Montpelier has more parades than any small town I've ever known which is cool. The best is the 4th of July parade but the general abundance of parades and special events on the statehouse lawn is another reason why it's such a fun town to live in.