Happy Thanksgiving everyone!This year I was not going to miss the parade. Last year I was so exhausted from moving across country and working a million hours a day on my new job, I slept through the parade. But this year, since my flight to Virginia was cancelled due to bad weather, I’m here in the Big Apple for this holiday, and I’m going to enjoy it!
Martin woke me at 6:30AM to be fed, as usual. (My alarm clock gave out on me last week, so it's a good thing I have Martin to get me up.) When I looked out my living room window around
7:00, I couldn’t believe that there were people already lining up along Broadway for the parade – which wasn’t due to start for another two hours! I hope they were dressed warmly. (See picture with arrow pointing at the early birds. I shot that from my living room.)I left my apartment at 8:58AM and was at my viewing spot for the parade at 9:00. How cool is it to live this close to Broadway? I feel very blessed. I foolishly wore a hooded sweatshirt over a t-shirt, with just a thin Mariners jacket, thinking 41 degrees isn’t that cold. Ha! I hadn’t prepared myself for the wind tunnel I was in on 50th Street. Thank goodness for the hood, or I wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in the freezing wind. It may be 41 degrees out, but the wind is bitterly cold.
A wonderful retired couple from Plymouth, England, joined me in my spot on the marble bench in front of the Paramount building. They told me about their wonderful travels all over the world and their visit to NY this week. It was great to have someone to talk to while waiting for the parade to hit 50th Street. The parade finally showed up at about 9:30, after working its way the nine blocks south from Columbus Circle. By 9:40 we were so cold that we were already talking about hot cocoa.
The nice couple had tried and failed to get into the Empire State Building yesterday afternoon – the two-hour wait was just too much. And their hotel required that they check out at 9:00AM today. Can you believe that? You pay three or four hundred dollars (or more!) a night for a motel, and you have to be out by nine?
I was there to see the first ever balloon fly upside-down on Broadway – the Humpty Dumpty. Scooby Doo was my favorite. I just couldn’t get over the size of that thing!
At 10:00am my hands were frozen solid, so I came home and immediately heated up some milk for hot cocoa. I turned on the TV just in time for the parade to arrive at its destination in Herald Square – at Macy’s - where ABC was filming the event.
I love a parade! Here's the first float coming down Broadway toward 50th Street:
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