1-26-08 Winter Carnival Grand Day Parade

This past Saturday was our first parade as Aquatennial Ambassadors....at least for Mary, Rob and I. The rest are old hat at this since they've been going since last July! Here's how it went down...

Tzvetelina, Charissa and Jenna at the Vulcan Coming Out Party

We met at the St. Paul Hotel again in the morning. Jenna and Tzvetelina joined Rob and me along with John Brant in the lobby (John by the way is a former Commodore and has been helping us along the way). We were going to the Vulcan "coming out party" which is another part of the Winter Carnival lore. Since we witnessed a good part of the legend at the coronation Thursday night, John thought this would be an interesting follow up as to what happens on the Vulcan side. Mary and Charissa had already been at it a while and were meeting us at Wacouta Park.

The Vulcan's on their signature firetruck

We met the Senior Queen, Ann and Senior Princess, Judy along with the 2004 Queen of the Lakes, Sandy Vucinovich. The park was full of people as we welcomed the new Vulcan's to the party. The Vulcan's did their thing, we took a few photos and then it was back to the hotel for a quick lunch.

The welcoming of Vulcanus Rex and the Vulcan Crewe (notice the flames....they like heat)

We got back to the hotel and started layering up....no, it wasn't THAT cold but let's be honest. We all claim to be rugged Minnesotan's but when you have to stand outside for an hour, then get on a float being pulled down the streets of St. Paul in the middle of January, you check your pride at the revolving door. It's long-johns and four sweaters. I can look pretty later. In the meantime, I weighed 400 pounds.


The parade ran through downtown St. Paul and the turnout was tremendous. It was a boisterous and energetic crowd. We followed the truck with the Winter Carnival South Wind Prince who was revving up the crowd with "Olé!" contests. I can also say that I never want to hear "Hot, Hot, Hot" by Buster Poindexter ever again. Took me days to get that out of my head.

We took a bit of grief (all in good fun I'm sure....ok, I hope) from the fine folks from St. Paul. Welcome to the right side of the river was the theme of the day. Hopefully we can welcome them to Minneapolis come July!

After that it was off to a reception to mingle with some of the other festivals from out of town. Spent a bit more time with the family from Festival Du Voyageur in Winnipeg, since that's our next stop in February. I'll share more later but there's much more to that city than I knew...the French culture runs through more of Canada than just Quebec. We'll be learning all about that in a couple of weeks.

Following dinner at Schroeders Bar and Grill in St. Paul, we were all pretty spent. We piled into a van and headed for home. Another day with a lot of smiles, laughs and good times for all of us!

Tzvetelina, Jenna and Charissa

We want to invite you to come see us on Saturday, February 2nd for the Winter Carnival Torchlight Parade....starts at 6pm on 5th street in downtown St. Paul. See you there!