Mad Town Mondays VIII: The Fools Flotilla

Have you ever made a float? Neither had I, until this Sunday! We were participants in The Fools Flotilla, a free spirited, merry floating parade. A fleet of kayaks and canoes, adorned with outlandish decorations and ridiculously dressed people, start at Tenney Park ( two blocks from our house) and parade up river to the Marquette Waterfront Festival.

Unsure of how to begin building a float, we brainstormed for a while and decided that a canopy would be most befitting our ideals of a flotilla. So we started by pulling out our kayak, a tent, our bedroom curtains, some mirrors, and the most important ingredient... a bubble machine! Here's what we came up with:

At the river, we were greeted by a marching band, a giant fish, and about a dozen canoes and kayaks occupied by wildly costumed, grinning people. The parade had no clear beginning and no front or back. We all just piled into the river and eventually everyone seemed to feel the need to get going all at the same time. So we all started rowing and by the time we went under the first bridge we all seemed to be in a comfortable order. That's when the real fun began.

 The two bands started playing and everyone started singing. We wove in and out of the crew exchanging pleasantries. We received many compliments on our decorations, which, surprisingly, were among the most extravagant. One kind fellow even said they should make an award just to give us since our canopy was so great. (I thought that was sweet but a bit much.) Everyone seemed to be having a great time. I've never had such a pleasant time with so many strangers. There were kids and old people and young people and even one dog. Everyone had something interesting to wear and several of them had bubbles too. As one fellow said, "You can never have too many bubbles!"  Well, any place where people think you can never have enough bubbles is the place for me!

There was a surprising amount of support on the shore. This was no Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade but we had many onlookers, one of which took this video that you can find on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldj488r7Nnc (We float by at two and a half minutes in) And our local news also covered the event in the Wisconsin State Journal's article "Around Town: Flotilla of Fools".


I would have liked to have taken lots more pictures (one of me would have been nice) and a really great video of everyone singing "Yellow Submarine", however,  my camera battery died just after we got started. But I did get these:







All of the pictures and videos can't capture how much fun it truly was. It was amazing being surrounded by fun, interesting, and kindhearted people all participating in a flight of fancy. This was definitely the high light of my month and possibly the whole summer.