The Palo Alto 90th Annual May Fete Parade was the big deal of the day. When I got close to downtown I found out that every nook and cranny near the train station was stuffed with community groups getting ready to strut their stuff for the rest of the city. This year the theme was "Palo Alto at play."

Carol Brouillet's "Green Party Party" was entry #53. It took a while to find them.

         

Soon after I found my friends I found out that #54 was the German School, who were putting on quite a show. The juggling was nice, but Carols float had some real political content.

  

     

The tree had funny money and "Seeds of Change" growing on the branches like fruit. The Lost Science of Money was sitting on the plush dolphin's tail.

  

I like this "OCCUPY the WORLD" idea a lot like the way I like "give peas a chance"! Seeing Mother Earth in a tent being pulled by a bike covered in stickers was AWESOME!

     

We got a charge out of the fact that we'd won "the Mayor's award."


I spent most of the time we were in the parade handing out Carol for Congress bills to people in the crowd that stuck their hands out as I offered them. This was about as close to an action shot as I got. I had the time to take it because we weren't passing anybody at that moment. Most of the parade route was thick with people. They were usually stacked half a dozen deep on the sidewalk, especially on University Ave.

     

The parade ended at this park where they had lots of stuff you had to have small kids to find interesting. I hung around as long as I could be helpful handing out literature, but after a while my spot got cold. I looked over the car show on the way out.

  

  

Doesn't that air scoop look like a human nose?





On my way South I saw a bunch of art. Turns out that the first three weeekends of May are Silicon Valley Open Studios, and many artists put out bright yellow signs and lure you in with fine food and their best stuff. Most of it I just looked at but this one grabbed me for some reason.