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| On July 10th we rode in the Thornton Quasiquadcentennial Parade (Celebrating 125 Years :o) |
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| We started out
early. I got up at 5am and had Gato washed and shiny white by 6:30.
The girls got to the farm at 7 and had Tess and Huck cleaned up by 7:30.
PERFECT! We were loaded and ready to go by 8. Had to
be in the line up by 9:45 ... it's only 20 minutes to Thornton ....We're WAY
early. ... but wait, Russ needs to wash the truck this
morning since we're putting it in the parade. So off we go to
town to quick wash the truck. We have PLENTY of time.....
About 30 minutes later ..... Russ is FINALLY done washing his precious truck. I can't believe it took him that long to wash that stupid thing. I took less time washing Gato!!! So now we're on our way ..... UH OH! Do we have fly spray? Oh no! We forgot to pack the fly spray!! We need to stop at ACE and get some fly spray. HURRY! We are going to be late! Russ runs in the store and FIFTEEN MINUTES later comes out after tons of people go in and come out ahead of him. WHAT IS HE DOING IN THERE?!?!?! We are FINALLY on the road at 8:45. My sister calls .... they are there already. Where are you guys?? WE'RE COMING!!! We FINALLY get to Thornton around 9:15 ... by this time this little town is PACKED with people and I have to pee. We spot a little gas station and maneuver the truck and trailer in there between all the other people stopping there. I run inside ..... DANG IT! Someone is in there. I stand there and wait patiently ..... and I hear them talking in there .... sounds like a mom and a couple kids ... and I wait .....and wait ....and WAIT ... and then I hear the mom's cell phone ring and she answers it and starts talking on her phone!! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!! It is now 9:20 and we have to be tacked and ready to go at 9:45. I knock on the door ... um .... kinda in a hurry out here!! She says .... oooo , sorry! We're hurrying. 5 minutes later they come out. I run in there .... do my business and RUN out to the truck. It is now 9:30. Russ and the girls are yelling at me ... WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!!?!!! Of course we need to find a place to unload and tack up and this little town is PACKED with people. We have messed around and waited too long to get here. You do NOT want to be late in a little town. They have no roads and many times you get caught somewhere with a big truck and trailer and can't turn around. Well, that happened to us. We spent another 10 minutes driving around just trying to find a safe place to pull over and get the horses off. I told Russ WE HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO GET TACKD AND IN LINE -- JUST PULL OVER ANYWHERE!!!!! We FINALLY pull along a side street and stopped. |
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| GO GO GO!! We couldn't tie the Huck and Tess to the other side of the trailer because we were on a busy side street. Shriner cars were buzzing past us, floats with balloons and streamers, sirens were blaring all over the place. We pulled Gato off and tied him to one side (the somewhat quiet side).... then pulled Huck and Tess off and yelled at Kerry and Grandma to HELP!!! Can you hold them for us?!! Thank goodness we had lots of hands there to help!!! |
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| Sally was going to be our pooper scooper again at this parade. I had made her a bunch of signs to put on her cart and to wear but now didn't have time to help her get them put on. I gave them to her and she went to work putting them on her cart working really fast .... |
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| Grandma holds Huck and Kerry was holding Tess while Russ tacked everybody up and Dani, Tory, and I got dressed. We now have TWO MINUTES PEOPLE!!! TWO MINUTES!!! In the meantime through all this chaos, people were coming up to us to talk to tell us how pretty the horses looked. One lady came up and said -- Hey! I saw you guys last weekend in Clear Lake! We tried to get ready and visit at the same time ..... |
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| Russ got all the horses tacked up and then started to put the signs we had made the night before on the truck. He's driving the truck ahead of us in this parade and will be cranking the music so Gato can dance .... |
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| Hurry Hurry Hurry!! It's 9:50 and most of the horses and buggies are already lined up. We're late!!! |
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| Ok .... Kelly is up. She takes Gato to a back driveway and starts dancing him to warm him up.... |
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| Kelly and Gato are ready and are wearing gold and black in this parade. Tory is up -- she's riding Huck this time and is in green ..... |
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| Awesome! Dani is UP! She's ready to go on Tess in the blue and black costume. |
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| Ok Ladies!! Let's Rock N Roll!! We gotta get in our spot!! We're # 36 out of 150 entries in this parade. A little parade info .... most of the time parades put the horses at the end but we've found some parades like to split them up and have them mixed in with all the other entries. We like it when they put us in the middle so we don't have to wait so long to go but being in the middle puts your horse in a very precarious position. At the end, all the scary stuff is AHEAD of you so it doesn't scare the horses. In the middle, you are SURROUNDED by scary stuff. There are floats ahead of you AND behind you --- stray balloons are floating everywhere ..... sirens and bands are in stereo both in front AND behind you ... cymbals, megaphones, shiny scary evil things that eat horses are all over the place. You have to have some VERY stable and well adjusted horses to ride in a big parade in the MIDDLE.....and luckily we have great horses. These guys are rock solid. I think they would stand quietly during an earthquake. :o) |
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| By the time we get up to the line up it is 10:10 ..... the parade is already started. Kerry (sister) has my camera and we gave the video camera to grandma ...... |
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| Kerry takes pictures of some of the entries in the parade .... |
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| This was a band that was a few blocks ahead of us... |
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| LOTS of decorated golf carts and ATVs in the parade .... I'm guessing purple and gold must be the school's colors? |
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| The parade was so big because this little town was celebrating it's 125th centennial. The parade officials were worried that there would be nobody left in the town to actually WATCH the parade because everybody was going to be in it!!! |
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| These were band queens from the 1940's .... :o) |
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| I have no clue what this was but it was sure colorful!! |
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| Here we come!! Russ is in the lead with the big black truck --- Jailhouse Rock is cranked!! |
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| We had signs on each side of the truck .... Gato and I were directly behind the truck and Tess and Dani and Huck and Tory rode side by side behind .... |
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| I put the new website address on the truck .... www.spanishdancinghorse.com Maybe more people will call us to be in their parade!! .....Dani and Tory look so beautiful!! |
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| Russ said he didn't like the gold and black outfit on me and Gato as much as some of the other ones .... I think Tory looks STRIKING in the green with her black hair!! |
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| I tried to make Gato dance so Ker could get some pics but she sucks at taking pics --- she kept cutting our heads off. Here comes our loyal Pooper Scooper!!! Sally is so funny ..... :o) |
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| Um .....wait a minute ..... what does that sign say on the cart??!! OMG!! I SPELLED APPLES WRONG ON ONE OF THE SIGNS!!! OMG!!! AND SALLY WALKED THE ENTIRE PARADE WITH THE WORD "APPLES" SPELLED WRONG!! I AM SUCH AN IDIOT!!! I never noticed that at all til I was downloading pictures. I feel so stupid!!! |
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| Well, at least the other two signs on the cart had the word spelled right. HOW COULD IT DO THAT AND NOT EVEN NOTICE?!?!?!?!!!! Wow ... |
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| This guys was way funny -- he was a Barney Fife impersonator complete with authentic police car and everything. :o) |
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| These girls were a few entries behind us .... "HEY! You guys spelled "apples" wrong on your sign ...." Yeah yeah, shut up little girls. |
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| All done ... the parade wound us right back around to our trailer! How convenient!!! We took our time untacking and loading up. The lady said it might be hard for us to get out of town with the parade going on almost all the streets in town..... so we spent about 30 minutes dinking around when we were done. We finally loaded up and decided to try to get out. We went around one block and got pinned in by the parade ...... we thought .... hmmm , well maybe we'll just sit here and watch it for a while. Then we saw the number on one of the entries going by --- #63. WOW! They're not even HALFWAY through the parade yet!!! YIKES! We're not sitting here another hour .... we gotta get home. So we waited for smokey the bear to come by and he waved us across the road. Thanks Smokey!! But we weren't out yet ..... down one more block then we turned left ...went another block ..... PARADE again. Dang it!! We sat there and waited for a hole, then we darted across and we were OUT! Yay! |
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| What a fun day ....
and such friendly people in Thornton. Even though we were running
late, all the parade officials were extremely friendly and helpful as they
tried to help us find a spot to park and unload. We would
DEFINITELY go back to this nice little town and ride in their parade again
sometime. It was a beautiful day and we had tons of fun.
:o)
I took this picture because I thought it was so neat --- what a perfect rainbow to compliment the perfect parade today. Go ahead puppies -- you can pee on the truck now. Parade is over. Look for us in the Franklin County Fair Parade coming up next!! |
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PLEASE CONTACT US IF YOU'D
LIKE EL GATO TO PERFORM IN YOUR LOCAL EVENT!!!
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| Dragonfire Dancing Horses |
| (*Home of El Gato) |
| Kelly Reynolds |
| 1262 170th Street |
| Hampton, Iowa 50441 |
| Phone: (641)425-0689 |
| Email: knrarabians@iowaconnect.com |
| Website: www.the-dancing-horse.com |
| Home Website: www.dragonfiredancinghorses.com |