PORT TOWNSEND — For the 69th consecutive year, thousands of people lined some of the city’s busiest streets Saturday to cheer the Rhododendron Festival Grand Parade.
Election-year parade entries were out in force, with candidates and political groups hopping in sporty new cars and classic old cars to wave at their constituents.
The 115 entries in the parade weren’t a drawing force for just locals, though.
Four-year-old Hannah Weise of Bothel got a view of the parade on Water Street from the shoulders of her father, Bill.
“We came out just for this,” Bill Weise said.
Nearby, brothers Nicholas, 8, and P.J. Monroe, 5, of Anacortes gazed on at passing fire engines.
Amid marching bands and cars with chrome shinier than a bathroom mirror, a few Rhododendron parade staples came marching through.
Perhaps no entry in the past few years has become more notorious than Chaise Boom-Boom. The parading women who perform synchronized drills with their lawn chairs is a bizarre tribute to the area’s creative culture.
Similarly, although armed with construction equipment, the Habitat for Humanity Hammer and Drill Team showed off its hand-eye coordinated prowess when battering out steel-on-plywood tunes.
The handy men and women laid down their tools when their support vehicle, a restored Ford Model A, sputtered, popped and stopped dead when it overheated near the parade finish line. The group pushed their steaming ride into a parking lot to let it cool off.
