Floral Parades.

I realize that having this entry titled Floral Parades almost sounds like a duh! Most parades have floats decorated with flowers but this parade is the Kamehameha floral parade as it says on the placard at the beginning.  This parade is to celebrate King Kamehameha V and his contribution to the culture.  It takes place on the first Saturday after King Kamehameha day (June 11).

The parade has the usual grand marshal, all the various beauty queens for the state from Miss Hawaii to Mrs Hawaii and all the titles in between.

In addition, the Royal Hawaiian Band lead off the parade after the placard. They have been playing since around 1850, through the wars, through everything.  My father first heard them in 1938 when he and my grandmother first moved to the islands.  They even have a band gazebo to play at in the park between the zoo and the aquarium.

I think there were four other bands who marched and played in the parade including one from St. Louis.  There were several floats such as this one celebrating the decedents of Kamehameha.  We also saw one of the hotel's floats, cars with the father, mother, grandfather of the year for the Chinese society.

And of course my favorite, the princess of each island and their court as they all rode down the street on horseback. The princess of Oahu and her court were all attired in yellow and each island is easily identifiable by their individual color.   I had a great time looking at the wreaths the horses wore.  One island had green mangoes woven into the wreaths and they looked great.  Each group has the mandatory pooper scooper patrol in matching t-shirts with decorated bins . 

The parade took about two hours total to watch and before it ended we saw some collector cars ranging from a corvette to dune buggies to VW's,  the Sons of Hawaii Motorcycle Club and of course the wonderful Honolulu Police department with their officers on both Motorcycles and Bicycles.

I loved every minute of it because each and every entry in the parade had flowers decorating it.  That is why it is called a floral parade.
Tomorrow, who knows what I"ll be writing about.