I went to check out the parade on my own & planned to meet up with people at the Civic Center Festival. Imagine my surprise when I ran into Irwin wandering along the sidewalk of the parade route. Needless to say, we hung out together all afternoon & had a lot of fun.

I didn't feel compelled to get back to the Main Stage at any point this year. I briefly scanned the schedule and nothing really jumped out at me. For the first time in a long time, I did everything I could to avoid the area because the crowd pressed in front was so dense...

After the parade ended the crowds on the sidewalks took to the street and it was a people's parade as we all made our way down Market Street to the festival in the Civic Center.

Sister Roma and the Hot House Video Float

The campaign for clean elections has been working on getting publicly funded elections in California. I was surprised to see the group's contingent marching in this year's parade. They've had mixed results in getting campaign finance reform measures passed in the state but it was good to see they're still out there drumming up support and keeping the cause alive.

Another surprising contingent to see in this year's parade was this colorful, rainblow accented float. It belonged to a local evengelical church. It still couldn't inspire me to set aside my prejudice against the evengelical mindset enough to check out their church.

I really liked seeing the rainbow draped cross on the back of their float.

Some tranny's marching down Market Street