Kla Ha Ya Days 7-19-14

Today's adventure was a local embracing of my new home.  Snohomish's Kla Ha Ya Days (Kla Ha Ya meaning 'welcome') was this week and I just scratched the surface of this fun celebration.
I got downtown a couple hours before the parade and enjoyed wandering around the eerily empty streets playing with my camera.  I had a delicious raspberry white mocha from Rock City Café.  I was told they have the best coffee in the state and I certainly believed it after having mine! 

By the time the parade started, the streets had been thickly lined with a multitude of people.  Little kids eager for candy, local shop owners washing their windows, people with dogs, tall people, short people, old people, people with pink hair... but mostly happy people (the little boy in the monkey backpack near me alternated between candy ecstasy and screaming overload).  I LOVED the beautiful horses, but if I was handing out awards, the grand prize would have gone to the Sauerkraut band/group.  These people were having such a great time out there, you just couldn't watch them without grinning.


This Viking was advertising a pumpkin toss/medieval faire and would stop and blow his horn and then shout "BECAUSE I CAN!!"



"Boba Fett!?"



These horses were made of poetry.



Hello handsome!



This dog was super happy to be in the parade!



The Sauerkrauts.  Great band, great costumes, and great smiles!



Haha.. vote for Pedro.

This was just the parade.  There was also a River Run before the parade, I think people could run 1 or 5 miles.  I enjoyed vendor/craft booths filling a couple streets, a chainsaw artist, and a man balancing a unicycle on his face.  This is just what I saw.  There was so much more to do, including a bed race, salmon BBQ, Frogtastic Kids Fair, etc. 
On my way back to the car, I stopped in to the Cabbage Patch restaurant for a bite.  I have never had anything there that was not superb, including the service, and enjoyed a fresh scone while I waited for my smoked salmon scramble.
Snohomish is just a fun, friendly and picturesque town, and full of great antique stores as well.