We went to the 59th annual Torchlight Parade in downtown Seattle this past Saturday night. Last year more than 300,000 people attended and this year had just as big a crowd. Some people camped out overnight to save a spot right on the curb. The parade went all the way from the Seattle Center to Qwest Field, which is about 2.5 miles. People were everywhere on both sides of the road the entire length of the parade. We arrived around 5:30 after being somewhere else all afternoon. We walked around for a while before deciding to pick a good spot before they were all taken. The parade started around 7:30 and lasted until after 10.

I've never been to a live parade before, so it was pretty cool to see one in person. There were a lot of kids there and it seemed like all of them had toy horns they blew in the whole time. There were all sorts of floats, balloons, drill teams, bands, and special groups that participated. One balloon in particular we thought was cool was the compact fluorescent light bulb. You'd never see anything like that in a parade in Texas.

We started to get a little bored by the time the 5th drill team went by and our legs were tired from standing for over 3 hours. At the end there was a big pirate ship float that had an actual cannon on it that would fire couple minutes. It was pretty loud and scary the first time we heard it. Overall it was pretty fun.