Santa Barbara takes the worship of the sun very seriously. So seriously in fact, that there is a two-hour long parade devoted to celebrating the longest day of the year. June 20, 2009 is the first time that I experienced the wonder that is the Santa Barbara Solstice parade.
I'll preface by saying that both sides of State Street were lined with chairs from Thursday night on, in anticipation of the parade on Saturday. I settled for standing room only, which I'm pretty sure was the better option for two reasons, (1) the vertical height of standing was a significant asset in allowing me to get my camera ready to catch the action that was dancing up the street; and most importantly (2) I was able to avoid any personal contact with those in the parade. Typically, the solstice parade hosts some adult content--because who doesn't want to shimmy down the street naked on the longest day of the year?--however this year there was a crack down on nudity. Thankfully, nudist supporters were still out in flocks. Luckily we were standing close to one.
The parade included a host of bands, dancers, razer scooters, rollerbladers, floats, bikes, unicycles, wagoneers, and walkers--many of which were dancing to the beat of their own drum. The parade starts at Cota street and ends in a Bier Garden in Alice Keck Park. I have a theory that includes drug use pre-parade by solsticers. Now, this can't be proven...but this gecko has GOT to be on something...
The highlight of the day was definitely riding the tandem bike downtown with Tim. Todd came along on his shnazzy new road bike, which really put us to shame. But there is something that makes me quite proud in the teamwork it takes to accomplish a succsessful jaunt downtown on a bicycle built for two.
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