Redmond Derby Days

This Saturday we went to the Redmond Derby Days. The Derby Days are Redmond's annual festival, featuring the Redmond Medical Center Kids' Parade, the Venture Bank Grand Parade, the Microsoft Entertainment Stage, the Bicycle Criterium, free kids' activities, food, beer, and wine garden, Funtastic Carnival, and Fireworks Finale at 10 PM. Not to mention free promotional giveaways, etc. Promotional giveaways included: stickers, temporary tattoos, frisbees, pens, magnets, post-its, pens, bookmarks, magnetic clips, stuffed animals, candy (Starbursts, saltwater taffy, Three Musketeers), free swim passes, pins, and American flags. Each kid on wheels wearing their helmets in the Kids' Parade also got two dollars (in golden John Adams coins) from City of Redmond. The Kids' Parade was rather sluggish. Being our first time participating, we arrived bright and early at 9:15 at the Redmond Medical Center to sign up. We were all in "Anything Goes" group. We waited around with a gaggle of noisy kids until the parade began at ten 'o clock. Other groups included: Love our Earth, Redmond's Birthday, Freewheelers, Furry Friends, etc. I would have liked to be in Love Our Earth but I was unable to think of a suitably environmentally friendly decoration (what, drag the family's recycling bin on the back of my wheel?). I went for the "Country Milkmaid" look--I wore a sleeveless pink corduroy dress over a white tank, purple-and-black striped stockings, white sandals, and a purple satin ribbon around my neck. It is a sizzling seventy-something degrees, a smokehouse for us poor Redmonders, used to the drear of constant rain and eternal fog. Not to mention it seems like the entire population has been uprooted and dragged to Derby Days, so with the dust, heated food, people, bouncy houses and slides, it felt like an oven, pardon the cliche. In any case, I shall depart to risk the outer flames.