Pictures for Pam, Day 155: SSC: Snakey McSnakerton in Black and White

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Oh dear. I'm terribly late again today! And on top of that I'm totally exhausted so there is only one picture tonight!

What luck! Today was Medford's annual Pear Blossom Parade and street fair--the perfect event to bring Steve's sister to! In the dozen years we've lived here, Steve and I have never actually gotten our act together to go so we were delighted that we finally got to take part in the festivities.

None of us minded walking so we parked the truck well-away from the parade route and then made our way over to take a look. I was immediately drooling at the Corvette Club's 25 entries that drove by in as many models and colors…they are one of my favorite cars and it was such fun to see them.

We decided to walk towards the street fair area and we were walking at the same speed as one of Medford's high-school marching bands. As they played, a smile bloomed on my face and I fairly beamed in absolute bliss. The piece they played was one of my favorite songs, "Shake Shake Senoroa" and you'll recognize it from Beetlejuice, which is also a cult favorite of mine! (I've linked the YouTube video)

For the first time in many, many years, I was hearing a band play very close to me and could feel the music course through me. The magnificent beat of the drums, the horns, the flutes, all of the instruments thrummed through me from head to toe. It was the most wonderful feeling to be part of the awesome music that unfolded as we walked along. I absolutely couldn't get enough of this awesome experience.

Not only was my whole body completely captivated, watching them was pure, high-octane eye-candy! In front were the "color guard" or flag-twirlers and they spun their colorful flags and danced to the music…what fun they were to see! Such cute outfits, all of them were full of energy and each wore a big smile. Then the conductors in their festive hats walked backwards the whole time, leading their flock of musical sheep. Then the reed instruments, the drums, the horns, and others, with a row of officials to bring up the rear. I saw it all. I got the unique experience of being a part of their outstanding performance for nearly an entire mile!! When they got to the end of the song, they did some fancy drumming and then started over again…I felt like the world's happiest purring kitty. What a show! What a delight! It was fabulous.

We then walked around all of the booths at the street fair and there I got to enjoy people watching and saw lots of really neat arts and crafts for sale, and endless types of food offered by a myriad vendors. The smells were so mouth-wateringly delicious…I felt like I was gaining weight just from the smells that wafted everywhere! HEAVEN!

The sound of a band began to encroach on our senses and what we were hearing was one of my favorite kinds of music, bluesy-soul and the woman singing was AMAZING! Again I could feel the performance and just stood and enjoyed every song. (I found the band: "Not Too Shabby" and here's one of their pieces on YouTube: (click the words) ) Steve and Deanne both wandered off to get food and I had a bite of the sausage Steve got to tide me over. I loved watching the kids dancing to the music and the occasional adult that couldn't keep their bodies from moving to the rhythm. It was so neat.

Eventually we had our fill and made our way back to the truck and headed over to the historic (albeit incredibly touristy) town of Jacksonville where we started off by going to our favorite coffee house there and enjoying perfect creamy coffee. Then we spent a couple of hours wandering around and enjoying the sights. Me? I had my camera with me and lost myself in hundreds of pictures of spring flowers and other cool sights. (I took a few at the festival but I had my 100mm with me and it's not conducive to street photography so I didn't really bother…no worries, I wasn't really in the mood to deal with possible agro from people.)

We finally left and were completely happy with the day and totally exhausted from our activities. What fun!!

Oh…yeah…I didn't forget about today's photo assignment! The Saturday Self-Challenge theme is "Your pet in black and white." OK! I suspected I'd be wiped out at the end of the day so before we left this morning, I had Steve handle Snakey McSnakerton, our beautiful 4-foot-long California Mountain King Snake for a photo shoot! I got lots of super shots but I don't have the time or energy to process any more than my main image. Isn't he gorgeous?! We adore him!

Pam, it looks like you don't have any snake pictures on your stream but you did have a lovely skink picture which I really loved! Super cool to see this fellow, we have them on our property but I've only seen them a few times. I hope all is well with you, I enjoyed reading about your scorpion encounters and I'm glad you haven't been stung by any. *BIG HUGS*!! Thinking of you!!

Explored on 4/14/19, highest placement, #3.