After eating, we made our way to the staging area where our 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 I headed back to the 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.