The Westward Ho is one of the oldest and biggest non-motorized parades in the nation. I like this parade a lot better than the previous Dress-Up parade because cars, 4-wheelers, and motorcycles are not allowed. You can ride a horse, ride in a buggy or a wagon, or walk - just like the old days. The crowd seems to like this parade much better as well, and there is a huge turnout of spectators that line the streets of Pendleton to watch it.
We had a long wait for the parade to start, roughly an hour and a half of standing in line. You can see in the picture above, entrants were backed up for 1/2 a mile waiting to go through. It was a huge parade this year - since it was the centennial - and Craig and I were entry number 161. There were folks behind us in line too, so I'm guessing there were over 200 entries that participated.
Craig was all smiles and ready to go! He has the brokest horse that we own, (Dee) who has been though this parade a zillion times, and I was riding Nettie who has been through the Dress Up parade once. Both horses did exceptionally well. Unfortunately there was a wagon lined up behind us that had some issues halfway through the parade and almost became a wreck. But we were able to get out of the way without a problem. Sometimes these parades get a bit western - (and not in a good way), and it's best to be astride calm headed horses.
A photo that my mom took of us. Thanks mom! The Eastern Oregonian also took a picture of us going through downtown side by side. I rode Nettie sidesaddle again with the bosal. She did wonderfully.
Craig and Dee. He had a lot of fun and looked sharp. After the parade went through downtown, there was a serpentine of the entrants that went into the Round-Up arena for a big picture of everybody. We opted to not do this, because we had to get home and pack for an endurance ride coming up. But, if we had more time we would've been in the big group parde photo. It was a fun time and we got to see a lot of familiar faces. =:)-Shannon.
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