Alaska Day

October 18 is Alaska Day...the day we celebrate the purchase of Alaska from Russia. The 1867 purchase actually took place in Sitka, so we celebrate it here in a big way. One of the main events of the celebration is the parade. EVERYONE is there! The kids especially love it because everyone throws candy to the crowd. It's better than Halloween! This year I decided I wanted to walk in the parade to advertise the U-pick garden and hand out something better....I wanted to hand out carrots.

So I had some t-shirts made up....

 

The fronts say:

And the backs say:

And then I washed all of the carrots (the ones I said I had set aside earlier for a project).....

....while Mr. Adams attached my sign to the front of the 4-wheeler....

 ......and duck decoys to the rack for special effect (since live ducks didn't seem like a very good idea)...

Carolyn agreed to help us, and she met us down at the parade lineup...

Of course it was raining, as it does every year on Alaska Day, so we had to wear our t-shirts over our warm clothes and rain gear. We sort of looked fat and puffy....but, so did everyone else!

And then, we were off....Carolyn and I carried baskets of carrots, and we each took one side of the street....

Mr. Adams carried the rest of the carrots on the back of the 4-wheeler.

Now, let me tell you, when the people saw us coming with those bright orange carrots, they went absolutely nuts! I could hear them yell, "CARROTS!" way down the street.... EVERYONE one! They were so excited! Of course, we didn't have enough for everyone to have one, but we handed them out to as many kids as we could. The kids were so cute...look at this little girl, all set up for a rainy parade...

I wish I could have taken more photos, but I was REALLY busy. The parade seemed to move pretty fast and the crowd was just a blur of frantic people holding out their hands begging for carrots. Honestly, I couldn't even focus in on who was there or recognize people I know...it was that crazy....but I absolutely could not stop smiling. It was about the most fun thing I've ever done.

The highlight of the whole thing for me was seeing kids ACTUALLY SPIT OUT THE CANDY THEY HAD IN THEIR MOUTHS to eat our carrots. I almost cried...it made me so happy.

We tried to ration out the carrots to last the whole parade, but we unfortunately ran out the last half block. And then, it was over....and on the way home I was thrilled to see carrot tops along the road....

....mixed in with the candy wrappers.

Let's do it again next year!!