For over 30 years now, Gonzales has hosted the "Come and Take It" parade through the streets of this wonderfully historic city.  This was about my 3rd or 4th time for this event, and I can assure you - I'll keep coming back.

The club was expecting a good-sized turnout for this event and some basic plans were made.  Whoever from Austin interested in attending would meet at Kaiserville, aka: Danny's place and we would leave at 6:30am from there and convoy on down the 60 miles or so.  Well, about 6am, I arrived and my dad was already there.  We wandered around back and Danny was helping Fred get his jeep on Herb's trailer.  When that was completed, up pulls Toby and his friend Ray.  We downed some hot coffee, and one of the TAVV guys showed up so we were ready to roll.

An hour later, we all arrived after an uneventful trip.  So far, we had Danny with his M151A2/M416 combination, me and dad with our M38A1, Fred and his CJ Navy jeep, Toby and Ray with Toby's MB and the TAVV.  Then, Madison arrived with his wife and grand-daughter along with his M37, Chuck and Connie show up with the MB from San Antonio and finally JD and his dad with their MB. What a group!  I had heard grumblings of people being hungry, so I trotted off (actually drove) to the Whatburger only a quarter-mile away and picked up 10 breakfast taco to go.  When I got back to the parking lot, we fired up and headed to the staging area hauling the TAVV guys who had also arrived.

We located our staging spot and parked.  Then waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Hurry up and wait.  That's the drill.  That's OK, we feasted on the breakfast tacos so none of the troops would starve.  About 9:30, the judges started making their rounds so I just had to 'sell' the club to each of them.  Danny remarked on how well I can 'market' our club too.

At 10:30, the parade started.  This is what's called a 'reverse-order' parade, and a mighty fine concept at that.  The first vehicle in the parade is actually the last one in line.  The second vehicle in the parade is next to last etc.  This way, each of the participants gets to drive by those entries to see the parade and once you're started, you get to drive by those still waiting to roll-out.

We meandered out of the staging area for several blocks and saw some terrific entries.  At the beginning of town where the parade started and the awards are given out, one of the judges ran over to the Danny's lead vehicle and presented our group with 3rd Place for Group Participation.  As the parade meandered through town, the crowds were evident on this wonderful day.  Lots of smiling faces, clapping and the occasional standing ovation.  As the parade meandered through town, the crowds were ever present throughout the entire parade route.  In fact, there's a better showing of spectators here than the Veterans day parade up Congress Ave in Austin.  We were #72 and it took us right at one hour to finish.  With 131 entries, that would be about a two hour parade for the spectators.

When we arrived back at the loading area, we all secured our vehicles in short order.  In no time, most of us had decided that lunch was the next order of business and we decided on Kreitz's Market BBQ in Lockhart.  However, Chuck and Connie had to head back to San Antonio as did JD and his dad back to Corpus.

For those of us who continued on to Lockhart, we were treated to some pretty good bbq.  Then, Madison and company show up after we thought they were going to stay in Gonzales for the festivities.  Everyone stuffed themselves to maximum capacity and it was time to roll on home.

Overall, an excellent parade.  My hat is off to the organizers of this event and look for us next year!