I’ve never had a parade, with this much drama, in my whole life!

The first weekend in August, is always Brat Days. It’s a 4-day festival with bands, a flea market, stuff for kids and of course, bratwurst in abundance. It’s a fund-raiser for the Kiwanis Club (I think). We hardly ever go buy the over-priced brats, but we always go to the parade.

Today, however, we only got a partial parade and thankfully, only a few people got hurt. As we are sitting there, a car FLIES by, at a freeway speed, or faster, through the residential neighborhood, where the parade was happening. Fortunately, when he went past us, it’s a divided road and the parade participants were on the other side. At the bottom of the hill, though, he hit a median and did hit some people. Apparently, injuries were non-life-threatening, as far as I know. It could have been FAR worse.

Eventually, this idiot was followed by quite a few cop cars and sheriff’s vehicles. I heard from another by-stander that the high speed chase started in Kohler, about 3 miles west of us and continuted into the middle of Sheboygan, where families lined the streets for the Brat parade.

My hubby, who works as a news photographer, started taking pictures and eventually walked down to the intersection where it ended. He’s now at work processing pictures for the newspaper and the website.

I came downstairs to his work cellphone beeping and it was the managing editor’s voicemail about the incident, but he’s out of town and doesn’t know that Gary’s all on top of it already.

Oh yeah, needless to say, the rest of the parade was canceled. At least we got to see the Budweiser Clydesdales, and the dalmatian, though! They were about ready to make the turn, to the road that goes to Kiwanis Park, when the yokel FLEW past us. I’m glad they were high enough up, on their wagon, to see it coming, and kept the horses in place, on the road, so the horses didn’t get hurt.

What I want to know, is how the idiot got through the barricades that were up, to block the road, for the parade. I really have no clue. Someone must have moved them, because they knew it was coming.

I felt bad for the little kids across the street, who had bags for the candy that is always thrown. They had to go home, empty-handed. I felt bad for me, because I had to carry Gary’s heavy chair home.

For more info later:
http://www.sheboyganpress.com

I guess I’m involved too, since I’m fielding phone calls, about where Gary is, etc.

Sarah and I just went to the grocery store, and I noticed when we got back to the car, that across the aisle from us, in the parking, lot were a van from Massachusetts, a pickup truck from Michigan, and a van from Maryland!  While we see Michigan plates in WI, all the time, since it’s right next door, Massachusetts and Maryland are quite the find!  The MA van had an outline sticker of a girl doing a gymnastics move and had a sticker that said the word “gymnast” below the license plate.

Also, the La Quinta hotel near our house, had a packed parking lot.  Tomorrow night, we will see how crowded it is over by Blue Harbor Resort.

Opening ceremony tickets hard to find
Photos of set-up for gymnastics meet

Starting tomorrow, in the North High School gym, is the 2008 YMCA National Gymnastics Championship!  We don’t have tickets, though.  It’s just exciting seeing lots of out-of-state license plates.

The high schools both built brand-new gyms in the last few years, so they have enough room, to hold a meet of this magnitude:

4,000 tickets sold
1360 gymnasts
21 different states

http://ymcanationals2008.org/teams.php

I see there isn’t anyone participating from Maryland, but maybe it’s a spectator!