Fire and Ice Parade
Today was the annual Cedar Rapids Downtown Fire and Ice Festival. John, Melissa, and I first started at the Chili Challenge where we got to try a bunch of different chili from many of the local restaurants and vote for our favorites. Not a bad dinner deal for $5. Then it was time for the parade. We watched it from the corner of Second Avenue and Fifth street, right by the KCRG TV station building so there were cameramen running all over the place. The parade was pretty diverse including the appearances by tow trucks, local boat club, religious groups, and local car dealerships, neither of which I have seen included in the parades before. After an hour in the chilling cold it was over and we were so ready for some hot cocoa. Overall, I would say I probably won’t go to it again next year, but I will definitely be there for another Chili Challenge. And as the Ice portion of the festival, we did see some ice sculptures but there were only a handful of them and they were not very elaborate, so we did not spend much time there.