Part of the Parade

A couple weeks ago my friend Abby spent a Friday night with me, and on Saturday morning we decided to get some coffee and go down and check out the farmer's market. All of this is just within walking distance, a few short downtown blocks, away from my apartment. The weather was beautiful, and we woke up with great energy and a positive attitude, so we headed out for our little adventure. 

As we exited my apartment building, we noticed that the street was blocked off to car traffic with some cones, barrels, and police cars. Interesting, but honestly not interesting enough to give us any pause. Probably because we hadn't had our caffeine yet. 

We got to the coffee shop and were a bit alarmed at the long line of people waiting outside the shop. I noticed that some of them were in matching t-shirts and were anxiously checking their watches and glancing up the street toward Calhoun. I thought, "Surely the farmer's market isn't this popular?" and then I realized that the market is in the opposite direction from Calhoun. So something else was happening... 

We finally got our coffee and a few sips in I remembered that the night before, I'd seen people setting up lawn chairs and picnic blankets all along the sidewalk down Calhoun. A few more sips of my hot hot latte jolted my memory further - Three Rivers Festival! Holy cow, today was the first day of the biggest festival of the summer and it was kicking off with a huge parade!

Another sip calmed me down as we turned away from the growing crowd and headed toward Barr Street and all its organic and homemade goodies. A quote from one of my favorite movies popped into my head: "It's big, impersonal, and has nothing to do with us," and I put the chaos behind me. 

We did enjoy the farmer's market - so much to see and hear and smell! So many interesting people and dogs and products!  We got some local honey and greeting cards and talked to a few really cool and resourceful people. Then we joyfully headed back to the apartment. 

That's when things got weird.  

Apparently, the street-blocking brigade followed us to the farmer's market, because every street we tried to retrace back to the apartment was blocked! Detour after detour eventually rerouted us to the now very crowded Calhoun Street, where several rows of folding chairs filled the whole width of the sidewalk. Abby went before me, saying "Excuse us!" to all the oblivious onlookers and pushing chairs and children aside to make room. We were moving in the same direction, and basically at the same pace, as the parade, which was now in full swing, so even though we were on the sidewalk doing our best to wiggle between people and chairs, we felt like we were part of the parade and yes, the crowd was cheering for us. 

A Girl Scouts troop, a few fancy old convertibles, an off-duty fire truck, and a marching band escorted us down the next three blocks until we reached our destination. It was loud and crazy, hilarious and stressful, magical and slightly terrifying all at the same time. And once again I experienced how fun it can be to live downtown right in the middle of the action.