Sep 20 - Alexis is Grand Marshal of Mexican parade

As you may or may not know, my wife Alexis grew up in Gary and East Chicago kinda poor and she didn't speak English when she entered public school. There's also a little single mom with no money mixed in there and some other challenges, so when she was asked to be the grand marshal of the Mexican Independence Day parade in her hometown... it was a pretty big deal to her. Actually, the parade and festival are a big deal to a lot of people, almost all of whom are Mexican.

So it was a big mess-up on my part when we arrived at Block Stadium this morning to line up for the parade, and I pulled out my camera to take the first picture (of a guy on a horse) and... nothing. No snap, no click, nothing from my camera.  

Oops, battery was dead. And I remembered immediately that I had left the spare plugged in on my workbench in the garage. Big mistake. 

So I did what every self-respecting German-Polish-Dutch guy would do at a Mexican Independence Day parade - I lied. 

Ah, Alexis, I'll tell you what. I'll drive around to near the end of the parade and park there so we can have a ride when it's done. I'll take photos there.

She looked at me kinda weird - OK, I guess.

So I turned and hurried to my car and drove furiously home (15 minutes). Picked up the battery out of the garage, and drove even faster down the Borman to Cline Avenue to Columbus Drive (14 minutes). I parked the car at St. Mark's, ran as fast as I could with this ailing back past the police station, and came up on the corner of Columbus Drive and Pulaski just as Alexis was approaching. She sat elevated in the backseat of a convertible. I took a ton of pictures and smiled - I'm so proud of you, honey.

Why are you so sweaty and out of breath?

It's hot out here.

No it's not.

That's my wife, the consummate lawyer. Always suspicious. So after a very kind woman handed me some paper towel to wipe my brow, I took a ton of pictures of the end of the parade. You can look at them if you want by clicking on a photo below to get to my smugmug account. After the parade, we went to the festival along Lake Michigan, and that was kinda cool for pictures too, especially the mountain of Modelo beer stacked next to a few measly cases of Lite beer... for, you know,  the six or seven jueros at the party. 

This is the first photo I took of Alexis as I'm running up to the parade after a mad dash home for the camera battery

Mt. Modelo