Juneau July 4th Parade

Bob and Jack, the 2 guys on "Companionship" whom we have met at various ports and anchorages along the coast, have a rental car here in Juneau and invited us downtown to the big parade with them. Downtown Juneau is about 14 miles from Auke Bay Harbour where we are staying.

Fire department candyman

The fire truck is much older than the firemen

Decrepit dragon

Cute kids

And, of course, a pipe band. Americans are really into pipebands.

This was our first exposure to the big American Independence day bash but I dare say it is likely much different here in Alaska than in the (more civilised) lower 48. It was a typical small town parade with decorated floats from all the local groups and businesses as well as the fire department and the Coastguard.
They even had a pipe band and a marching band.

And an Elvis !!

This was on a moving truck

Leftovers from the Gay nineties?

Tattoos are big here

Something we have never seen before was that  the floats and marchers all had bags and boxes of candy (Saltwater taffy) that they threw into the crowd as they passed. All the kids along the way scrambled to catch them in bags and baskets just like Halloween. Apparently this used to be done everywhere but has been stopped in recent years because of food contamination fears, again like the halloween poisoned candy problems. Alaska is obviously not yet worried about that particular problem.