A little summer madness

People say the summer doesn't really start in the USA until after July the 4th. Here on Vashon, the start of summer is the annual Strawberry Festival. In the dim and distant fog filled past, Vashon used to have the largest strawberry fields in Washington state, but not anymore. Along with most commercial produce, that has all moved over the Cascade Mts to eastern Washington, but I digress.
The Strawberry festival is 3 days of madness with a bit of mayhem added. Lots of craft booths line the town center along with food purveyors, heating supply contractors, quack medicine men and tie dye shirts. The parade starts it all off, which to my simple mind seems to include every organization, child care facility, organic farm etc on the Island (and anyone who wants to dance and strut their stuff in public).

We have a small Highland Pipe Band which convenes hasty practices about 2 days before, mainly as an excuse to drink whisky. This year, Legend Jr. helped lead the band. I took out his Kilt from its storage box and tried it on him. He looked like Twiggy, it was so short. The maker added an extra 2 inches to the hem, so I set about unpicking all the threads and ironed out the creases. With our parade pass in hand, we manoeuvred past the security barriers and parking Nazis to the parade starting point. It had been raining all night, but the sun started to peek through the heavy and overcast sky pushing the temperature up into the 80's. The water on the road evaporated, the clouds lifted and the Grand Parade Marshall blew her whistle and we were off

Folks on Vashon love getting dressed up. The initial bad weather had not deterred anyone from attending so we paraded to a capacity crowd. Here's a few more photos of the day. 

The Lovely Mrs legend and Wild Scot

Anti Republican Backbone Campaign

We breed 'em big on Vashon

Exercise Class with Drummers

Vashon Thriftway shopping cart demo team

It isn't a festival without the vintage tractors

Legend Jnr's teacher Melanie and her family Cajun band

Am I big enough for this ride?

I guess so

Sean lives in a tent in the woods and never misses a chance to dance

The lovely Kaetlin