We were abruptly awakened at 6 AM by an AMBER and weather alert and it was difficult to get back to sleep. Once we got up and had breakfast, we left the campground and went downtown for the parade at 10:00. Main St. was blocked off for 8 long blocks, but we found a parking space one street off of Main and walked with our chairs to find a shady place to sit. Fredericksburg, as well as many towns in Texas, celebrate heritage, patriotism, and family as was seen by the floats in this parade today.
It wasn’t long before the parade was in sight. We could look down the street to see it coming.
Leading the parade down the street were members of the football team who carried the Fredericksburg banner before the color guards.
First in the parade were the Native American representatives from the Comanche Nation. They were greeted with applause and cheers.
Many companies in town advertised their businesses or organizations by decorating floats.
Many community groups were represented and there were floats carrying the ancestors of the families that founded the city.
There was a float with representatives from their Sister City of Montabaur in Germany.
There were quite a few cool, old cars and trucks in the parade.
Some branches of the service were represented.
And of course, there were local bands, but no high school marching band. It occurred to us that not many people were walking in this parade, maybe due to the heat.
This float represented a German shooting club. Notice the long barrel rifles used only for target shooting. This year will be the 126th Schuetzenfest (shooting festival) which was brought to the United States by the German Immigrants. It was only skipped twice–once in 2020 for COVID and during WWII to preserve ammunition for the war effort.
What was mostly missing were the horses. You gotta have horses in Texas, right? This team of horses was representing Schaetter’s Funeral Home. The white horse and wagon were the funeral hearse.
These ladies represented the Women’s Suffrage Movement celebrating 102 years since women got the right to vote.
No parade would be complete without the Peach Queen.
Bringing up the rear was the float representing the city of Fredericksburg, TX.
The entire parade took about 30 minutes to go past us and the townspeople really came out to celebrate their heritage. We returned to the campground after stopping at a roadside farmstand to buy a couple of peaches ($2 each). We had lunch in the motorhome and by 2:00 in the afternoon the temps had really climbed.
Yikes! Most everyone hung out in their AC at the campground. No wonder they sent out a heat warning this morning. We avoided going into town with all the visitors arriving for the celebration. Auggie and I sat outside for a little while. The skies were clear again today, but the wind was warm and gusty at times. We watched the Kentucky Derby and recalled our visit to Kentucky for our first Kentucky Derby a few years ago. I was able to check it off my bucket list and it was a day to remember! Auggie and I took our evening walk around 8:00 and by then the temp had dropped to 84. It was actually pleasant outside. Tomorrow is our last day in Fredericksburg and we plan to got into town to savor some German food.