pro football hall of fame grand parade

we have never been to the pro football hall of fame grand parade during induction weekend - primarily because we didn't feel like hauling the kids into a big crowd to sit. this year we decided to check it out. i was a little surprised to find that it started at 8am. i got up at 5am to shower and get everything prepped while trying to find the balance between having enough and not having too much to carry. then i woke the kids up a little after 6am and we were out the door at 6:30am. we parked in a neighborhood about a block off the parade route and hoped for the best. there was no where to sit on the side where we were parked and little hope of walking down in either direction so we headed across the street where there was room for us to make a second row. on our way across the street we ran into folks with lays potato chips giving out snack bags. chips at 7am were definitely a treat!

it was fairly cold when we got there - low 60s - and it was forecast to get just to 70 by the end of the parade. let me tell you that it felt a lot more like 80 and happened really quickly! the kids were sweating and complaining and we tore through the two large water bottles i had brought with us before the parade even started!

maddux liked that lifting his hat removed his hood too.

mason scouting for the parade.

the road was already closed when we arrived and must have been closed for a while. several people were playing football in the road and one group of joggers were attempting to play catch with each other and the crowd while jogging down the middle of the road. i say "attempting" because they dropped the ball at least every other throw.

look how tall madelyn looks in this picture!

the swelling on maddux' face has gone down so dramatically that you wouldn't notice it if i didn't point it out. and he is feeling SO much better!

when the people whose chairs we were sitting behind finally arrived (right before the parade reached us), they offered us some cold water bottles and we grateful received them. i was able to reciprocate because they had failed to bring sunscreen and that i had.

i gathered from the people around us, that this football player is always the first item in the parade (behind the color guard). what we quickly learned is that next year we don't want to sit at an intersection!

every balloon had to lay down right in front of us! but it was kind of neat to see how the team maneuvered them down and around before standing them back up once they were clear. we did still get to see them 'spin' the balloons. i have never seen it done before so maybe it is a thing with this parade, but they would run in a circle periodically to spin the ballon around. every single one did it at one point or another.

boy scouts with pinewood derby cars

 when there were gaps in the action, we would play around with the camera...

i took the harry potter picture for our friend lorelai. there were lots of characters walking in front of the trolley but the picture didn't turn out at all.

it was difficult to take pictures because the sun was so bright that i could barely see the preview screen. i was just aiming and hoping for the best!

i think this was a 'super fan' float. i missed the banner in front, but there were clearly representatives from each team in some wild outfits. the chargers pair walking gave matt a shout-out.

mike ditka - smoking a cigar

manning didn't smile a lot, but he waved almost the entire time.

our new friends in front of us let the kids come sit on the curb in front of them to have a better view.

these two are getting 'shade' from my shadow because they are too hot. my poor northern babies...

there were cars for inductees and members in town - it was pretty cool. the pictures are just a small sampling of the ones that stood out to us. here are the names of those pictured below: andre reed, charlie joiner and dan fouts.

dan fouts was the highlight of the parade for matt. as matt put it, dan fouts was almost as excited to see matt as matt was to see him! (matt was just kicking himself for not wearing his dan fouts jersey. he said that fouts wasn't on the published list of attendees.) we were towards the end of the almost 3 mile parade route and fouts said that matt was the first chargers shirt he had seen. he was even more excited, and commented, that matt was wearing the old school powder blue. even the driver got excited! this picture is from the second time fouts pointed at matt while talking about him.

several of the jeeps 'climbed' up on each others wheels which the kids thought was pretty cool.

michael strahan had, by far, the largest entourage with his car. he must have had a dozen people walking on all sides of the car.

steve largent

come to find out, matt could have volunteered to walk with this brother bear balloon through work! 

 and in the last group of hall of famers was aeneas williams and earl campbell.

several spectators jumped up to give this old ambulance a push (although it must have been really heavy because a few waved their hand and went back to their seats). the guess was that it ran out of gas.

an airplane coming down the road.

there are lots of things we will do different in future years, but this was a really neat parade and we look forward to going again! we ended up leaving at the very end of the parade and it was around 11:30! that was a long parade! love.