THE SNAKE PARADE

Baxter the pitbull

Yesterday Mom was in a St. Patrick's Day parade, even though it's still a whole week until St. Patrick's Day.  This parade is called the Snake Parade, but there weren't any real snakes in it, or at least none that Mom could see.  Mom was in the Snake Parade with the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City.  Usually, the Humane Society goes to the Brookside parade, which is always on the same day as the Snake Parade.  But this year, the theme of the Snake Parade was about how it was the 100th anniversary of North Kansas City, which is where the Snake Parade is held.  And it's also the 100th anniversary of the Humane Society.  And there were Big Cash Prizes for the best entries in the parade.  So that's why the Humane Society decided to do the Snake Parade.

Mom volunteered to help carry the float this year, which is that big, long dachshund that the Humane Society has used for several years.  But this year there was also a birthday cake, with a cat that popped out of it.  And there was a new banner, and a woman who played the bagpipes.

A puppy named Salvador

And of course, there were some poor, homeless dogs from the shelter, and they looked really cute because they were wearing green bandanas that said ADOPT ME on them.  Mom said that I would not have liked to be at the parade because it was very noisy, with lots of drums and motorcycles and sirens and loud music.

This year the dachshund
wore a party hat.

Mom took a bunch of photos before the parade started, but then while it was going on, she didn't take any because she was inside the giant dachshund.  Mom said it was really weird being inside there because she could hear all the noise, but she couldn't see much of anything.  But here's what she did see during the parade:

1.  The street pavement
2.  Yellow lines on the pavement
3.  White lines on the pavement
4.  Candy that got dropped on the pavement
5.  Candy that got run over and smashed on the pavement
6.  Horse turds
7.  The two people walking in front of her inside the dachshund

Mom's view of the parade

It was sort of windy, so that made it hard to hold the dachshund sometimes, but it could have been much worse.  Mom got hot because she couldn't feel the wind blowing on her inside the dachshund body.  But it was all mostly worth it because guess what!  The Humane Society won 3rd place, and that meant they got $2,500.  The first-place prize was $7,000, but the 3rd-place prize was nice, too.  Just not as much money.










So here are some of the other pictures Mom took:

This is Roscoe, who is a Jack Russell terrier.  He walked the whole parade on 3 legs, because that's all the legs he has!

Here are a bunch of people putting the tail of the dachshund into his read end.  After it is in there, it can be wagged.  Those hoop things are what the people inside the dog use to hold it up.

These are some members of the North Kansas City High School marching band, waiting for the parade to start.  I think maybe that boy and girl like each other quite a bit.  Anyway, Mom did not see her own high school band, but she thinks they probably were there someplace.  Mom went to Oak Park High School, and NKC High School was their biggest rival.

Aunt Jana, who is on the left, bought a new hat just for the parade, and also some new hair.  Aunt Silvia wore some funny St. Patrick's Day stuff, too.

Buttons is a very cute dog with a curly, spitz-type tail.  Mom didn't get a very good picture of him because he kept jumping up on her instead of posing nicely for a picture.

Clowns wear really funny clothes and great big shoes.  Also they have red noses.  They look pretty goofy and a little scary, too.  When Mom took this picture, she broke one of the Important Rules of photography because she made it look like a pole was growing out of that one clown's head.  

This is the sheltie rescue float, but it was after the parade, and Mom couldn't get a very good picture of it.  The float shows a bunch of different important parts of North Kansas City history, and the shelties are dressed up to match.  Mom especially remembers the Katz Drug Store that you can see the sign for on the front of the float.  The sheltie group got the second-place prize in the parade, but we don't know how much money they got for that.

When the parade was all over with, everybody packed up and went home.  The dachshund got folded up and put in the back of Aunt Laura and Uncle Jeff's truck.  I guess he lives at their house in between St. Patrick's Days, but I think he must take up a lot of space.  I wonder if he eats very much.