For those of you familiar with National Lampoon's Vacation, this was fitting because the city shut down! Schools were cancelled, work was cancelled in many cases, our religious ed classes were cancelled, people called in sick and took vacation days to attend the parade and rally for our Royals on Tuesday, November 3, 2015.
Okay, so our morning started with me singing a song to get my kids out of bed. It went something like this:
"People say we are BRAAAAVE to go to the parade today,
But I saw we are CRAAAAZY,
Maybe kinda STUUUUUPID ...
Wake up!"
We knew if we did not have kids we would have been Downtown at 6 a.m. with all the other nutjobs but you can't do that with this many kids if you want to maintain a shred of sanity so we picked up our friends at 10 a.m. The parade was supposed to start at noon with the rally at Union Station at 2. Our original plan was we were to be dropped off as close to the parade as possible then I would park the van SOMEWHERE and hoof it back to my posse. But then friends and the news had us all freaked out about parking and it seemed like I wouldn't be able to park my huge van anywhere within miles of the city. So we opted to give the shuttle a try, even though we heard how long the lines were for those.
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| First stop: pick up our friends the Connors. Oh, and Julia was out of school and she's our go-to plus-one, so she is there also. My 12-passenger held 14 but don't tell the cops. |
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| My gorgeous friend Jill. You know if she puts up with me she must be awesome and ever-patient. |
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| We parked at Loose Park and walked to the Country Club Plaza. So far so good, still in good spirits. |
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| A quick pit stop on some historical figures |
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| Photo courtesy: Jill Connors ... the line for the shuttle bus to Downtown wrapped AROUND an entire city block and also wound down into the parking garage. At this point we were still happy but thinking maybe we had lost our minds. |
Was it all worth it?
ABSOLUTELY!
