We Accidentally Attended a Shriner Parade

Josh and I have to wait until basically right before sunset before we go running because it is crazy hot in The Forks during the day, but last week there was an unseasonably cool(ish) afternoon. I was excited because it meant we could run, eat at a reasonable time, and I could get to bed at 10pm.

We even had enough time to run over the bridge and run/jog/walk in Minnesota.

But when we got back to the DeMers bridge, which is where we cross back over from Minnesota to North Dakota, we came across this:

 

We had some indicators that a parade was in store for the town, but when we parked the car I rationalized that it takes us around an hourish to run/jog/walk and any imminent parade would be done by then. So we parked the car in the riverside parking lot, which has only one escape... on DeMers street where the parade was in full swing at the end of our run.

We had absolutely no choice but to wait until it ended. So we saw things like:

one of many only mostly racist old, white man bands

a Viking ship

lots of clowns

horses with bejeweled hooves

lots of white dudes on motorcycles, go-carts, 4-wheelers, etc. Josh said he suspects that's the biggest draw to being a Shriner

the "culturally-appropriate" steel drum band

and, the coup de grace, a bunch of old, white guys dressed... well... like this (the dragon spat out fire extinguisher foam from its nostrils. They aimed for me, but I was behind a bridge beam)

We had to wait for an hour, so our early start on our evening run was completely pointless because we got back to the apartment at the same time we normally do and I didn't get to bed until way after 10. But we got to see this Shriner parade, which seems to be the most Midwest thing we have done so far.