Saturday, May 23, 2015

Hyack Parade Highlights, or Where the Hell Have I Been the Past Year?

I'm back!  The last time I took a break this long from the blog was because I moved out of New West, so it didn't quite feel appropriate to keep posting here.

This time I was still in New West.  Very in New West, but not posting for another reason.  The short version is starting last June, I spent a seven month stint in Royal Columbian Hospital, including nearly three months in the ICU, dealing with a pancreas that was doing its damndest to kill me.  The last few months I've been recovering at home. If you want to read the long story, my wife kept an incredible blog of the whole ordeal.  For various reasons I'm not linking to it here, but will share if asked nicely (try twitter).  

Things are looking much brighter now.  I was feeling well enough today that after taking the kids to their dance classes this morning, I decided to keep them Uptown for the Hyack parade.  Despite living in New West for nearly five years total now, I've never actually been to the Hyack parade before.  

I'll admit I had low expectations.  I grew up in a town not much bigger than New West, and the parades there were uniformly lame.  So I wasn't expecting much.  But I was pleasantly surprised by not only the number of participants, but the variety and quality of them as well.  It was cool to see not only local groups and organizations but a number of groups from down in Washington as well.  

While the candy throwing was pretty limited, we did get free hot dogs.  Seriously!  And we bumped into just about everyone else from my kids' classes - small town living again. 

Here is a video I took showing many of the groups.  Sorry I wasn't able to get them all.  If you're around next year and haven't gone to a Hyack parade before, definitely come check it out - it's a lot of fun.