Soggy parade (part deux)

So, the rains came in earnest, and the folks in the parade were real troupers

Sticking it out, hoping for the next break in the rains to be the one long enough for everybody to finish the show...

Even IL State Representative Rich Myers bore with it in fairly good humor...

But I'm betting these kids wished their church had built an ark, instead of this float.

Still, my favorite part of any parade in town is

always going to be the Highlanders...

er, rather...

the Monmouth College Pipe Band (I don't know if I can adapt to all the changes since my antediluvian terms of scholarship).

At least the WCPBF Princess court had appropriate transportation:

and Jane Lovdahl handled the moisture with considerable grace

But I'm not so sure about the rest... they had bumbershoots, the cheaters! ;-)

Harding Elementary School, I think, was tossing out mardi gras beads from the back of a soaking wet truck bed...

And the IL home Extension groups were pretty soggy, as well...

As was the 4-H float.

But the crowds, and the participants, seemed to thin out as the rains became progressively heavier.

I stayed long enough to see the Monmouth College Marching Band finally stomp through... Nice to see they no longer have to march in their jammies.

Not the most flattering, but perhaps the more appropriate "majorette" uniforms...

These guys really rock, for a group still new to the college. The music department should be proud.

And with the arrival of these twirlers came the heaviest of the rains.

I was sopping wet, and I was afraid my camera -- not designed for immersion -- would give up the ghost if I let it stay out in the worst of it, so I went home. I hope I was one of a very few... but the pouring rains didn't stop until 6:00, a full hour after they started.

Some day, I will invest in a rain suit, maybe one like the Gorton's Fisherman wears. For the camera. Me, I like getting soaked to the skin. Even on parade day.