Pet Parade & Wine Tasting

Hi all, Dianne here.  The annual Bentsen Palm Village pet parade was today, and it did not disappoint!  Most of this blog will just be photos taken at the parade, with captions.  Roger and I participated in the pet parade two years ago with our whippets, when we were staying at the rv park.  This year Bentsen Palm Village opened the parade up to Retama dogs as well, and from the looks of the turnout, it seems to have been a huge success!  Don't know the total yet, but last year they raised $2,000 for Cinderella.  Here's a link to our blog entry from two years ago, if you just can't get enough of cute dog photos:


2010 Bentsen Palm Village Pet Parade 
Some of the same dogs were in this year's parade. 


A lot of Bandido and Tequila's dog park buddies participated in the parade, including....

Callie, Jagger, and Roxie

Kelso

Dharma & Greg

Fosterdog

And let's not forget Bandido the pirate:

Bandido

And Tequila dressed as Bandido's wench:

Tequila

The volunteers served hot dogs and beer (for a donation).  There were also baked treats for sale for both people and doggies.  

Folks paid a dollar to register each dog, and everyone was encouraged to "stuff" the ballot box with a dollar per vote to determine the parade winner.  All proceeds went to Cinderella Pet Rescue, where we adopted both Bandido and Tequila.

Here are some more clever costumes:

After a few cool, rainy days, the sun came out and it was absolutely beautiful at the time of the parade.  We participants took two loops around the circle, and then they counted the votes.  


Sasha won first prize.  Two years ago, she was in a very cute cheerleader costume, complete with pom poms (see blog link above).  Here's the winning gal this year:

Just a couple more....

Enough of the pet parade.  Since a pet photo of the day would be a bit redundant, we'll show some human photos of the day, with commentary by Roger, of the fun wine and cheese party this evening at Retama.






Roger here... Tonight was the annual Retama wine and cheese get-together.  All the participants brought a bottle of wine to share, as well as some delicious cheese.  Pretty simple concept.  Lots of fun.

Lookie, lookie at all the bottles of wine!   Looks like a few new ones, including an amazing syrah that was made by one of the Retama residents!  We poured a small glass of a Texas claret from the Becker Vineyards and went inside to look at the resident art display.  Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures of the paintings, quilts, photos, stained glass, intriguing carved walking sticks, agates, wood carving, etc., etc., etc.  Sipping wine, talking with friends, looking at the art work....  too much activity to remember to take pictures.  However, the talent of our friends and neighbors proved to be impressive.  

Back outside....  Plenty of wine left, as well as tables full of cheese, crackers, breads, and fruit.

Dianne brought  wedges of Ilchester cheddar with port wine and a Harlech English cheddar with horseradish and parsley.  Luckily, we were able to bring a small bit of it home.

As the evening progressed, the cool night temperatures seemed to be less of an issue for some reason.  The empty wine bottles made an impressive display.  Lots of glass for the recycling bin!  Doing our part :-)


The people picture of the day (already too many pet pictures) is a shot of the many people responsible for all those empty bottles.

Small Town Fourth of July at its Best!

Hi all, Dianne here.  Roger and I decided to take advantage of all the festivities here in Munising, Michigan for the Fourth of July.  Wow, this town really celebrates!

We took our spots among hundreds of folks to watch the hour-long parade.  The weather was perfect:  around 77 degrees and sunshine.

All the little kids were especially excited, and showed up with buckets and sacks to catch all the candy they knew would be tossed their way from the bands and floats.

There was even a pipes and drums corps.

One interesting tradition here is for the high school class reunions to each have a float.  We saw the classes of 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, and 2001 ride past on floats.  

Here is one parade entrant following the class reunion floats that I just had to include!  If you can't make out the lettering on the sign, it says:  
"We the people of the class of 1976 regretably failed to twice elect Peggy Carberry homecoming queen.  We would like to right this wrong.  Peggy Carberry, homecoming queen, class of 1976."  Peggy was there in all her glory!


The parade went on for just under an hour.  Obviously a very big deal here in this town, because it seemed everyone in town was either in the parade or lining the streets.

Bayfront park had its own festivities going on:  lots of food tents and even something new for me, "Chicken Poop Bingo."  We wandered up to the tent to see just how it was played.

The chicken finally did his job on number 7, so whoever bought a chance on "7" won some cash.

We skipped some of the activities, but walked over to see the pet parade.  Once they finally got started, it did not disappoint!  Here are some highlights:

For my pet picture of the day, I'm including a photo of what I hope become three pets in loving homes.  These three cute dogs in the pet parade are up for adoption at the Munising, Michigan animal shelter.  The dog in the front is obviously part blue heeler, like Bandido.  He seemed very friendly and a great dog.  Pass the word, if you know someone who would like to adopt!  Bandido will tell you that shelter dogs are the greatest dogs in the world.

I'll close out our visit to Munising with yet another great sunset photo over Lake Superior that Roger took last evening.  

Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort Pet Parade

Hi "Y'all" -- Dianne here. (I'm starting to feel like a Texan.) You know that I would NOT pass up a pet parade!

I'll warn my very few friends who are not dog lovers, that this blog will not have much for you!

This blog is mainly photos of the annual pet parade, which was held today at Bentsen Palm Village RV resort, where we are spending the winter. The purpose of the pet parade (other than fun) is to benefit Cinderella's Pet Rescue, the local no-kill pet shelter. Many of the Bentsen Palm Village winter residents volunteer their time at the shelter every year while vacationing down here. I haven't learned how to make a clickable link on blogger yet, but if you want more information on Cinderella Pet Rescue, their web site is http://www.cinderella-pet-rescue.org/main.html?src=%2F if you want to copy and paste it.

There were lots of people and dogs participating in the parade.

Those few who didn't participate brought lawn chairs and gathered around the circle to watch us parade slowly past. We circled twice around so that they could decide who they wanted to "vote" for (for a price.) Folks were encouraged to stuff the ballot box, since it's all for a good cause.

Roger and I didn't spend much time on costumes like some of the veterans did, but we knew it would be fun to see Jasper & Chaplin's dog park friends dressed in clever costumes.

My

favorite costume of the day was a Pittsburgh Steeler cheerleader, complete with pompoms on her front paws! She won second place. My boys couldn't resist flirting with the cheerleader!

(First place was won by the pair

of Yorkies, who had a large donation credited to their voting block).

There were dogs of all shapes, breeds, and sizes in the parade.

The largest was Jasper's good friend "Bud," an Anatolian Shepherd.

Bud is a gentle giant, who looks more like a big bear than a dog.

The smallest was a Pomeranian puppy dressed in Texas Longhorn gear (to match his mom).

Other dog park buddies who participated in the parade were our

neighbor's Italian Spinones, "Dharma" and "Greg."

They are as spoiled as our two whippets. As you can see from my favorite photo of the day, Dharma finally decided she'd had enough of the nonsense! I think this photo is worth a click to get a larger view!

This beautiful white powder puff

of a dog is a Japanese Spitz, another dog park regular, named "Chula." Chula was adopted in Mexico by one of the RV park residents. She's a beautiful pup and loves to run from her dad when she knows he's ready to leave the dog park (he's still working on that!)

"Taz" came dressed appropriately (his full name is Tasmanian Devil).

Taz is a Schipperke, and really is a live-wire at the dog park.

As you can see, all that canine meeting and greeting made

Jasper and Chaplin ready for their afternoon nap.

All the dogs got along well, with no skirmishes; just lots of sniffing to "check credentials."

I'll leave you with more photos of what some might term "clever," and others "canine abuse!"