Funky Fremont

The Fremont neighborhood in Seattle is known for being.. well.. Different. Maybe funky is a good description. When Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in Russia removed it's statues of Lenin, Fremont acquired one and erected it in one of it's town square's. Another square has an old rocket. At the main bus stop there is a life size statue of people waiting to catch the bus, who somehow get appropriately dressed for whatever the occasion is. Under the highway bridge which goes over the neighborhood, is a very large troll, under which is a smashed volkswagon. The car is real.

Are you getting the picture?

And they have a rather famous parade each year, Not on the 4th of July, or Thanksgiving, or Memorial Day, but on the Summer Solstice. My two middle kids, who live in the area, go every year. This year I decided to attend.

Before the parade starts, several groups go down the parade route handing out sidewalk chalk to all the kids and encourage them to draw on the street. It was fun to look up and down the street and see all the kids out drawing.

The parade is famous for it's nude bicyclists. I thought there would be just a few dozen, but there actually are hundreds, most of which are cleverly body painted. At first glance, you wouldn't know they were nude.

There can be no signs in the parade, no logos, and all the "floats" must be human powered. My son Eric says this is a religious group which worships this great ball of spaghetti. ????? Every once in a while, someone comes out of the crowd and get's "blessed" by one of the strands of spaghetti.

This gale was really quite the actress. They were extolling the evils of plastic bags

I don't have the foggiest idea what this group, in fact most of the groups, was about. Some of the groups, like the belly dancers, was pretty obvious.

Now this group I know about because that is my godchild, Ingo, the one with the orange hair. Her group is a kickball team.

After their "float", they had the crowd come out and lay down in the street.

The crowd then rolled the ball down the street over their bodies.

Clever!

The crowd loved it!

This is one of the groups I have no idea what they are about. Some dance group I suppose. But I liked their costumes.

And this girl was just so cute!! I had to include them.

And of course, there was a float with a miniature version of the Fremont Troll.

For all it's quirkiness, the parade was really wholesome. These girls went down the street having kids paint on the placard. The kids loved this parade. I did too. I'm going to go again.