Avast ye orderly marchers
We had a belated anniversary celebration down in Corpus Christi this last weekend. While driving around on Saturday we saw folks lining up for a parade during the day. Hey, a night parade on our vacation. Why not?

It was the strangest parade. Things I'd never seen before:
- A night parade. I'm a yankee. Nights are for fireworks, which were apparently canceled due to high winds. Note to politicians: take a hint from the rest of the floats and get some light on your name. The signs on the side of the pickups weren't visible *at night* without help.
- Rented porta-potties. Rented by a family for their pre-parade picnic/BBQ. For their private use. Marked "private." The public porta-potties were separate (and apparently very clean - hat's off).
- Volunteers asking if folks needed trash bags before the parade. Some of the volunteers in embroidered jump suits. These folks are serious.
- Motorcycle cops flying jolly roger flags. It was the Buccaneer Days Parade after all.
- So much space between acts. Yeah, we were at the end of the course and things can stretch out a bit. But what's the point of having the cops clear the course just to have it fill up again before the first floats? There were a bunch of times where people started looking around to see if that was the end, just to have another set of floats come around the corner a few minutes later.
- So many bands, with color guards, with people old enough to be my parents. Or older. Where did they come from? Does Corpus not have any high schools?

I'm sure that all this would have made more sense if I was a local. As a tourist it was fun to see an unexpected parade. The floats were colorful. The low-riders were cool. The Shriners kicked ass. All in all it was a very nice parade.

And hat's off to the Blackbeard tavern for still serving dinner after it was all over.