May Day in Minneapolis

I love parades. Growing up I was always in the Fourth of July and Christmas parades with my musical theater group. We sang on a float made of chicken wire and folded sonic napkins. I wish I had a picture. We often won best float, and in my memory it was like the rose bowl float. It probably wasn't that great. My sister was in the parades also, but with her gymnastics group. That meant tumbling all the way down Fry Blvd. I think I got the better deal up on the float. I also love watching parades. I remember the years we watched the rose bowl parade at my aunt Jan's and Uncle Dwight's house. Then the year my parents came to NYC for Thanksgiving we went to the Macy's Day Parade. It was beautiful weather and a wonderful experience.

Sadly until this weekend we hadn't introduced Penny to parades yet. Minneapolis has a famous parade known as the Holidazzle during the winter, but we weren't really rushing to take a baby to a winter parade . Maybe this Christmas we'll get bundled up and go watch it.

However, I did see an advertisement for the May Day Parade in south Minneapolis. It is put on by the Heart of the Beast puppet theater. Anyone in the community can get together at the theater and make costumes during the winter or sign up as a group to perform in the parade. According to the website it has been going on for 35 years and the festival at Powderhorn Park has a turnout of 50,000 people. Made perfect sense to me. Of course Minnesota would have huge festivities for the arrival of spring. So we headed to the parade. Let's just say the parade is unique.

The theme was Uproar (not sure how everything fits in the theme...photos below)

There were some really cool bikes.

Boxes and rocks? I think this has some symbolism I didn't understand.

Cool costume of some sort of lion creature.

Really ornate paper mache day of the dead ladies.

More cool bikes. We used to see these odd bikes in the Uptown neighborhood. I think it must be some sort of club.

So I mentioned that groups can be in the parade. They had some rag tag marching bands. They were actually pretty cool because they included all ages. The brass band had some senior citizens and a few 10 year olds. The tuba player was being pulled in a rick shaw, which I think is pretty practical and something I would demand if I played the tuba.

I didn't video any of those, but I did film this group.

What can I say? They are enthusiastic...

Penelope seemed a little confused by the parade. It is an odd custom...especially this one.
If you don't want to do modern dance down the street, you can always paint your truck like a tiger.

I thought these were pretty cool costumes. They had a woman with them that ran to the crowd and said everyone breathe in 3. One, two, three, Ommmmmm... definitely not Macy's day parade.
I wonder if the elephant made it all the way down the parade route with its trunk in tact.

And for the child who doesn't want to dress as a tree, tiger, elephant, horse, owl, they can be skeleton creatures led by pirates.

After Penelope took her nap, we headed to the festivities at Powderhorn Park. There were so many people! It was like everyone needed a dose of the state fair complete with mini donuts, walleye stand, and fried oreos. Well, and an assortment of vegan options.

We headed to the "family stage" for some entertainment.
We found very talented hula hoopers dancing to some extreme new age music. Very few kids in the crowd, but I saw more dreadlocks then I've ever seen in my life. It was quite the mix of people. I wish I had gotten photos of the civil war belles and gentlemen eating a picnic.

The boats were decorated too. They had dozens of canoes giving free rides.

Penelope had a good time. Even though it was very different than any parade/festival I've seen, we'll probably take her again next year.