We needed to do some shopping and out of that mundane task came a neat small town adventure. Another bit of serendipity. By chance, we took a different route to the retail area and as we were coming down the main street of Foley, the town to the south, we noticed that people were lining the street. Now, I was reasonably confident that they were not lining the street to see us pass. It must be a parade. Sure, the Christmas parade. Gotta see this. We love small town parades. We parked, walked over to the main street, picked a spot so we did not have to look at the sun and waited.
And the police drove by with their sirens and then the band paraded by playing Christmas songs. Then all the floats: the dance troops, the VFW, the local businesses. Everyone was in the parade and everyone else lined the streets. Candy - on my, everyone was tossing it - but we had 5 young boys in front of us and had no chance for any of the candy. Oh, well, I did manage to retrieve 2 pieces which landed near my feet.
The parade over, everyone streamed to the park behind us in the center of town. Here were food booths, Santa Clause and Mrs. Clause who was telling stories, a bouncy thing, a small jazz band, other booths and the snow making. There were two fenced off areas: one for toddlers and one for older kids. And there were the Jaycees putting huge chunks of ice into the snow making machine and the guy with the hose squirting it into these two areas. Hey, it’s 75 degrees - that snow melted as soon as it hit the ground.
finally it built up, the kids were let in and did they ever have a blast.
Hey, kids, it’s just snow - no big deal. Come live up north and play in it every day.
We then wandered over to the Train Museum. It was built by a guy who loved trains who gave it to Foley because they said they had a group to maintain and built it and also a building to put it in. What a display it was. Here’s 1/2 of it.
and, here’s the other half.
There was even an oil refinery. We were told that the original owner hired a guy to make all these parts by hand.
Groceries next and then home. Luckily we took a different today.
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