Staking out our corner

I forgot to mention that when Angel and I went in search of food we found this store. I'm not sure of what they were thinking when they named it, but we are giving points for funny as hell.

Now, the way this works is that the side streets will be blocked off just a few minutes before the parade starts. So, everyone stands around holding their tarps waiting for the moment that the police say, OK, now you can run out here like maniacs and stake out an area that you can call your own for the next 3 hours or so.

These three women may seem harmless enough, but they were our competition to the right. They had stools and were prepared to sit down right in the middle of our area given half a chance.

If you can visualize it, we were standing right on the corner, so our plan was to actually just move forward into the street. Now if anyone started edge into the street too early and maybe start taping down the corner of their tarps, the police would come by and tell them to pull it up.

It is hard for a photo to do justice to the chaos that reigns when people start rushing out. Then they place these huge cones in the middle of the street to mark what the "walkway" will be. Below is a lovely photo of the rabble. We are in the street. There is no doubt about that. MaryBeth and Mike did a fine job of leading the pack to the perfect parade position. Most of the floats actually stopped right where we sat and did a little circle and move towards the crowd with the big float thing. Very cool.