On Saturday, I walked outside of my coffee shop and right into a parade. The Montrose Annual Christmas parade to be exact.  The same dull parade that occurs across all towns across all states. Here comes the senator, here comes the homecoming queen, here comes a badly choreographed, out of tune JV marching band, here comes some boycotts.  Why again are parades interesting, again? People had literally CAMPED out for hours prior. For what? Is it imperative to have a front row seat for getting waved at?

After I left the parade, I made my way to The Department of Water and Power Griffeth Park Light Festival. The festival is 2 miles round trip worth of Christmas lights. You walk your way through it.  The combined popularity of the event along with the short exits off of the highway have made my trip home from work a traffic nightmare for the last week. So I decided to visit the enemy of my commute.

I too, had to wait in a long line off the exit. Bout a half hour to hour wait at around 7ish when I went. The traffic bottleneck turned out to be a badly managed 4 way stop.  Parking was plenty once you got to it.  As were the churros and hot chocolate.  Which I gladly paid $4 dollars for the pleasure of snacking on while I walked under lighted tunnels and past displays of New York, an airport, a waterfall...

Overall, worth doing. Its free. The parking is free as well. It's not overly crowded. Just don't go if you are having one of those "I hate all children, ever" days. Which I wasn't having, thank heaven. Hence, I just lightly crushed toes of kids in my way instead of the customary backhand.