Saint Patrick's Day Parade

Yesterday Gage & I walked in the Pittsburgh Saint Patrick's Day parade. Pittsburgh hosts the second largest St. Pats parade in the country. There were 20,000 participants and an estimated 200,000 spectators. Nearly everyone both in and out of the parade are dressed in green and many very outlandish costumes. It is a sight to behold. For this one day everyone in this area becomes Irish. It was a very long day for us as we had to be in the staging area at 9:30 A.M. but didn't actually start walking until 11:30. I marched with the Pittsburgh Dalmatian club that I have been a member of for the last fifteen years. We were group number 130 in the third division out of five divisions. It is amazing how they are able to coordinate that many marchers but they do an amazing job. The group with Punxsutawney Phil were directly behind us. They had Phil in a glass box strapped to the front of their truck. Before they got him out to place him in the box, one of their guys asked me if Dalmatians liked ground hogs. I said," yep, they think they taste like chicken". We both had a good laugh. After standing in a parking lot for two hours, we walked the mile and a half parade route and then had to walk through the city a different way to avoid the rest of the parade(up hill I might add) to get back to our car. It was quite the adventure but well worth it. Gage was a real trouper as he was manhandled by thousands of kids. Here he is before the parade began. He slept all the way home. I wanted to but I was driving. LaDonna