In Torrance, however? You can't miss it!! In fact, Torrance - from what I now understand - has one of the longest-running Armed Forces Day Parade in the nation. And that is no joke.
We live about a block from a major intersection and this is where the parade started. So practically all the participants in the parade were lined up along the street that crosses our street (Torrance Blvd. for those in the know). And Torrance PD used our street as the command post. (We are thankful that we had no plans on Saturday - we would have had a heck of a time trying to go anywhere!!)
Nick got to see some of the parade participants on his way back from the Farmer's Market with Daddy. So needless to say, he was quite excited for it! We walked down to the end of our street and waited for it to begin. (Please excuse the VERY dirty face - he'd been stuffing his face with an ENTIRE bag of grapes as well as a peach - have I mentioned before how much he loves fruit???)
A view down the street of all the participants...
They had an actual Navy jet that was being towed - unfortunately that wasn't parked on Torrance, but around the corner. You can just see it behind the soldiers.
A big truck carrying all sortsa missles & stuff...
If you click on the picture, it will enlarge and you can read the signs. Tells about what the Tomahawk's and other missles destroyed.
A very large gun...
A very large... uh... something...
Biiiiig truck-thing. I must note that once Nick saw me taking pictures, he turned around and said "Take a picture, Mommy" at EVERY new thing that passed by us. And a lot of stuff passed by - I won't bore you with ALL the pictures!!
A local regiment - they all looked so young!!
A tank! (Hey, at least I know what THAT is!!)
They had a number of flyovers, all which flew down Torrance Blvd. Here are some jets.
Nick waving at all the soldiers & their crew.
A big WWII truck and Japanese WWII vets.
They had a lot of bands - military and school bands. Nick loved them.
The parade was supposed to start at 1:30 but it started a bit late (very UN-military!) Nick's normal nap time is about 12:30-1 PM. So after a while it was clear that he needed to CRASH. And crash he did - he even slept through the Civil War re-enactment soldiers who fired their muskets!!
Very different from the last parade that I saw, which, if memory serves, was the Gay Pride parade in SF! Quite different, wouldn't you say?
1 comment:
Dude, so funny that you mention having no clue that it was Armed Services Day up here - I feel the same way! This weekend in Chicago there was a big thing too, and I was thinking that maybe it was only a Chicago thing - duh Heather!
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