Day 33 Sea 2 Shining Sea ***4th of July Parade***

This is a big day! We stayed at a hotel by the St Louis airport so we would have a short ride to the parade start instead of a 50+ mile ride that we would have had to start at before dawn. We rode 12 miles to the parade start all together as a group. That is something. We lined up 53rd out of 150 parade groups. Big parade. We got there at 8:15am for a 10:00am parade start. More hurry up and wait. Many people were on edge by the start of the parade. Not sure if it was all the waiting in the heat or just the thought of riding in a parade with 200,000 people watching. Crowds and noices can ready get to people.

With the parade rolling it started very slow, like slower then walking pace. Way slower then I was willing to ride so I started riding in circles at the end of the block. I think I was starting to make Larry sick. When we started rolling a bit I started weaving and riding more circles around our whole group. I was having fun. Paul got the great idea to do 50 meter sprints in the middle of the parade. 4 or 5 of us would line up, let the group get some distance ahead and we would sprint. I was riding in flip-flops so Larry would do all of the pedaling during our sprints and I would just hang my legs away from the pedals.

We were playing with everyone on the sides of the parade and everyone in the parade. We were even trying to get into the Shriner scooter bike figure 8 loops. They had some crazy patern so I kind of messed that up. We were having so much fun. I think I may even have seen the other tandem having fun. Now that is crazy.