Tuesday, November 17, 2015

We are BACK, Sort of

Oh my goodness, it was a long two weeks. 

Our computer.... we had to take Windows 10 off, and revert to Windows 7 Home Version, 
and it is still not back to normal yet.  The computer was stripped of all programs, but my 
precious pictures were saved.  The problem is, I have NO EDITING PROGRAM at 
present. 

I will rectify that soon. 

In the meantime, I am struggling with the fact I cannot get the computer upgrades 
to complete. 
I am going to have to take it back into shop tomorrow, 
to have them finish the upgrades. 

Keith was so kind as to help me buy a laptop, which I'll bring 
home in the morning, and I'll use that as my "photography" 
computer. 

So... a post... with no editing! 

Last Wednesday, I went to the Veterans Day parade in 
Leavenworth.  It is the second largest in the US, behind 
Washington, D.C.'s. 


A few minutes after step-off time of 10:30, here came the color bearers down the street.  They were led by two bagpipers!  (who may or may not have been playing Scotland the Brave)... 

See the Pullman Place sign behind and above them?  Best place to eat in Leavenworth! 


There were lots and lots of vets on motorcycles, this is a huge area for the 
veterans honor guard units. 


More colors, this time by firefighters... notice the two on the outside carry axes. 


There were cheerleaders, flag girls, and marching bands, go, Lansing Lions! 


And troopers carrying the colors. 


There were many vehicles, old and new. 


The US Navy Band had made a performance at Fort Leavenworth the night before. Were they ever GOOD. 


This lady sat across from me the whole time.  I wondered if that was her dad, whose picture she held. 

I never did get across to ask her, but I thought it was such a nice thing to do. 


Leavenworth and Lansing have large contingents of JROTC units. 

There were hundreds behind this. 


This year's parade did not feature as many horse-drawn units as in the past. 
Bad weather was actually predicted for that day... but we lucked out, and it 
only gusted once in a while, no rain. See the banners and the horse's mane? 

Then, the real reason for the parade came marching down the street: 


Everyone stood up straighter, and you can see that people began to clap and cheer. 

This unit, the lead, came to parade rest in front of us, while Taps was played around the corner at the reviewing stand. 


So young, many of them, but already with patches indicating they had been overseas multiple times. 

Guidons were whipping in the wind. 

Many in the crowd were veterans themselves, and many were saluted during the parade, and 
"Thank you for serving"... flew back and forth. 


And there they went! 


Behind them came hundreds of Boy and Girl Scouts. 

We thanked those kids over and over for marching. 
They stood a little taller. 


And oh yes, there were many, many older vets represented by floats and cars. 


And tractors... it's Leavenworth County, after all.  


The horse units were way at the end of the parade, of course.  There were not as many as last year, and I think the threatening weather did it.  However, as you see, we did get a little clearing. 

This unit had beautiful red, white, and blue saddle pads. 


The Fort Leavenworth Hunt members, the trolley, and, of course, the street 
cleaners brought up the rear of the parade. 

I stood with a veteran and his wife, and had a delightful time. 
Keith was ill, and not able to attend that day.  He is better now. 

This always brings tears to not just my eyes, but many along the parade route. 
It's a wonderful time, every time, to honor our nation's veterans. 

I'll get caught up over the next few days, but it may be a few days before I'm able to edit pictures. 

I'll get caught up reading your blogs, too! 

It's good to be back! 

8 comments:

  1. such a wonderful parade! i don't ave a comouter and haven't in years. all i use is a laptop and i will never go back. i love my laptop!

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  2. What a wonderful parade,, and beautiful photos..
    Can we ask,,, what do you mean editing photos? We have never done that,, and never heard of doing that... We have blogged at least 7 years and never edited,,,, Should we be editing,,, and how do you do it?
    love
    tweedles

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  3. I'm glad you are back. What a fantastic way to honor our veterans. I like that the lady was holding a picture of her love one that served.

    My sewing machine computer is not on the internet. It is setup. It works. And I want to keep it that way. I bought it to load my embroidery designs, photos and music onto. I put the files on a thumbdrive and then transfer them to the pc. That way I don't have to worry about an update crashing my embroidery software.

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  4. So good to see you back ! The parade was just wonderful. Our veterans need to know how proud and thankful we are for them. I see you have lots of colorful leaves left on the trees there. Here, ours are bare except for an occasional leaf hanging on. Hope you manage to get everything worked out with the pictures and computers.

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  5. Thanks for taking us to the parade!

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  6. So glad you're back! And the pictures are just fine and made me so thankful to all veterans.

    I've often said that if my computer fails that I'd just give up blogging as it would be too frustrating, but that would be a sad day as visiting blogs is a bright spot in my day. Good luck with all these problems, Mary Ann!

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  7. I wish my town did a parade like this. We have a Memorial Day parade, but that is it, and it is really tiny. Most of the parade is all the scouts (boy and girl) in our area.

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