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Friends and family members of mine are sure lucky - they often get to attend many of the area's wonderful events that I am sent out to cover on various weekends throughout the year. The person who usually gets roped into the most events is my significant other Jamie, who has endured more fairs and parades than he probably cares to admit.
I had been telling him all week about the Livingston Summer Celebrations Festival, about all the events taking place and the great family I interviewed the Sunday ahead of the big weekend. Seeing the forecasted warm weather, I was pretty sure Jamie wouldn't want to go and I had made plans to go to the Sunday parade by myself. But when I spoke of the Chicken BBQ, suddenly he changed his mind!
We headed to Livingston, first getting to Dodgeville, then Edmund, then Cobb. We turned down County XX so we could stop the car for a moment and marvel at the line of wind mills. Some of them were turning that day against a beautiful blue summer sky.
We got into Livingston and we followed a couple cars to Memorial Park. We lucked out and got a parking spot pretty close to the park. We headed right to the Chicken BBQ, walking by the long, still hot grill that the chickens were cooked on that morning. Boxed and ready to go, we sat down in the shade and enjoyed!
Jamie loved the chicken; I'd say he loved it so much I didn't hear one complaint out of him the whole rest of the day in Livingston! After we finished eating, we found a spot along the parade route under a large tree - shaded from the hot sun.
The theme of this year's parade was Mascot Mania, and there were certainly enough mascots marching! First we saw Bucky, probably my favorite mascot, giving high fives to everyone along the parade route. Then the Easter Bunny, a giant Smiley Face, Bernie the St. Bernard and Pioneer Pete. As Jamie and I are both UW-Platteville Pioneers, we cheered as Pete went by, remembering how not long ago the university introduced the new mascot (in 2012, the year I graduated from UW-P).
We left the parade with some goodies, even though we let the kids sitting nearby have most of them. Sunglasses from Livingston State Bank, some Freezie pops to cool us off, a couple Tootsie Rolls. But the best part of the day was seeing everyone in the Livingston community come together for a great summer celebration!
Area summer celebrations are just beginning - here are just a few coming down the line this summer:
Farmers Appreciation Day, Dodgeville, Saturday, July 9.
Rockin' Rewey Fireworks, Rewey, Saturday, July 16.
Our Town Celebration, Highland, July 21-23.
Linden Frolic Days, Linden, July 29-31.
Cobb Corn Roast, Cobb, August 11-14.