The cafeteria was closed today, so we simply had to go out for breakfast this morning. I can’t manage sushi for breakfast, as some members of our party could, so I had a delicious waffle! It was just regular waffle color, however. We were up earlyish (it was 9:30, but it was also our day off, come on!) because the PARADE was today and we had to prepare our float.
Our float was 95% our beloved blue truck. We belove it because it took ten days to get one, and ten days of hitchhiking is a long boring time. Cold, too, because hitchhikers are more likely to have to ride in the truck bed.
So anyway, we get this truck, and it is everything we could ever have dreamed of, except for power locks. It also has a quarter inch of dirt on it. We felt that this would be tacky for a parade, and we didn’t want to offend America on her birthday, so we were interested in cleaning. The best and only option was a power washer, and since we were on a time schedule, this was only slightly successful. The result was a tie-dye/graffiti effect, but since the whole of Barrow is covered in a quarter inch of dust anyway, we were not as tacky as we could have been.
The other 5% of the “float” was a glorious Grand Valley flag tied to a stick. Jobby found the stick on the beach. It is probably the largest piece of wood in a thirty mile radius. Not really, but no trees, remember? I waved it and waved it- from the back of the truck (driven by trusty Elizabeth, the PolarTREC teacher), but this time we were there on purpose. Jean and Jeremy made up the Candy Brigade, and Job, of course, was capturing the whole thing on a moving picture camera!
Evidently, candy is imperative for fun. We had quite a bit, but the parade watchers had more. No one showed up to the parade without a shopping bag or pillow case, and as we were near the end of the line of trucks, due to the last-minute tie-dye job, these receptacles were at least half full of candy by the time we were in view. This stopped no one from yelling “Hey, aren’t you going to throw candy?” at us if we hesitated for even a second! I was happy to have only a flag to deal with.
I was also happy to recognize so many people lining the parade route. Several BASC people, some of the cooks from the college, the owl guy, and Ubiquitous Enthusiastic Blanket Tossee were all there to collect candy and shout “Happy Fourth!”
Afternoon festivities included watching the children race, divided into age and gender categories. The three year olds can run decently, but no one was surprised when a contestant in the “One Year Old Boys” race took a delicious faceplant in the dirt. Job has the footage. He also made a caribou jerky purchase.
Happy America Day!
Look At Me Still Talking When There's Science To Do 
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