Lone Star MVPA - ('03 Gonzales Come and Take It Parade)

Event:	Gonzales Come and Take It Parade
Date:	04-Oct-03
Location:	Gonzales, Texas
Description:	Not too many club members interested in driving the 60 or so miles South go Gonzales. However, Danny and Scott decided they would attend for their second year in a row. With that in mind, they met at Danny's place and trailered their vehicles to this quaint little town. After unloading their vehicles (Danny's M151A2/M416 and Scott's M38A1) at the local school parking lot, they proceeded to the Whataburger for breakfast. After eating, they made their way to the staging area where their number was 11. This was pretty much at the front of the parade but really in the back! You see, Gonzales does their parades a bit different and it's a good thing. They stage their starting people at the rear with #1 being tail-end-charlie. Number 1 takes off then #2 peels in behind #1 and so on. This way, each entrant gets to see all the entries in the parade as they pass one another. And this all happens before the actual starting line of the parade where the spectators are! There were the usual floats from every little town, the fire trucks, horses, VFW posts and utility companies. This is one of the larger parades we attend. In fact, comments were made that basically put Austin to shame for not being able to pull off such a parade. The route was fairly long winding in and out of the downtown area. There were many thousand people lining the streets on both sides cheering on all the entries. At the conclusion of the parade, Danny and Scott headed back to their trailers, loaded up, ate lunch and headed home. There was one sad note to their trip home... About 5 miles West of Hwy 183 and Hwy 21, a small car carrying 5 students crossed the centerline and ran head-on into a Ford F150. The driver of the F150 was injured and four of the five students killed. The traffic tie-up took about 30-45 minutes to clear before we were able to pass the site of the accident.

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Danny with his M151A2	Miss Gonzales handing out Koozies	One of the many old cannons	Mighty fine air-brush work on the tailgate of an entry	...and on the door of the same truck

Luling was well represented with their oil well	And so was the city of Halletsville	Texas Dept of Public Safety was the first to start the parade	Along the route from Scott's M38A1 and Danny up front	Just a small portion of the many people lining the parade route.