Friends March in Fiesta Days Parade
Our "Sonoran Grill" Floats Attracts Applause and the Host of the "Sonoran Grill" TV Program
On Saturday, April 17th Friends participated in the annual Cave Creek Fiesta
Days Parade
(click on pictures to enlarge). As usual it was a fun-packed event with more than 100
organizations marching in this somewhat "relaxed" parade. There are only two
parade rules.
- All guns must be empty. Absolutely no discharging of firearms, blanks or otherwise.
- Alcoholic beverages while parading will not be allowed.
None of us carried or discharged firearms. This year's parade Marshall was popular country singing star, Naomi Judd.
Is the Rose Parade in our future?
The theme of the parade was "Your Favorite TV Show" and we chose the theme
"Sonoran Grill" because it fit our objective to promote the Cookout at the Ranch
IV event on June 5th. One float was
created several weekends prior to the parade by a team of 2 engineers, 3 artists and 1
hapless bystander. Click on the picture to the left to enlarge a picture of our crack
development team at work.
"OOPS. It's the real guy!"
Friends volunteers and the float were at the staging point at 7:30 a.m. As we waited
for the 9 am kickoff of the parade, we noticed somebody doing a
double-take at our float
and our Sonoran Chef impersonator. Turned out it was the real star of Sonoran Grill. He
commented that he looked a lot better than the impersonator (and I'm sure he's a better
cook, too) and then posed for a picture. The real chef, a Cave Creek resident, then
returned to his own float which roughly resembled a space ship.
Where are you Naomi?
About 9 a.m. a cowboy on horseback came back through the marchers asking if anyone had seen Naomi Judd. We were far, far back from the front of the parade and Naomi had not appeared at the front to lead us forward. They must have found her because about 10 a.m. the parade got underway. It was a beautiful day and nobody seemed to care about the delay.
Lots of good natured people and a few bad hamburgers
The 2 mile parade route started at Cave Creek Road and Sunshine Way, moved past the Sundial to Hum Road, turned right on Hum Road to Cave Creek Road then turned left down the south side of Cave Creek Road. The parade ended the Circle K at Spur Cross Road. Along the way our volunteers waved and passed out pamphlets for the Cookout at the Ranch IV. Our "chef" also cooked up some bad looking hamburgers sautéed with onions, peppers and pretzels which were eaten by the Nellsen kids. They were still standing and appeared in excellent health when the parade ended. Amazing!
We're still waiting for our float award!
Judges seated in front of Harold's reviewed the floats. Awards were to be mailed to the winning floats. Evidently they have not mailed them out because our Sonoran Grill float has not gotten any award. Perhaps it would have helped if we had the real Sonoran Chef doing the cooking. Oh well, there will be a different theme next year.
