#12 Attend a St. Patty's Day parade

St. Louis throws 2 big St. Patty's Day parades.  The first is in the area known as Dogtown and the second is held in downtown St. Louis.  The Dogtown parade is always held on March 17th while the downtown parade is always held on the Saturday before March 17th.  This year they both happened to fall on the same day.  I decided to take my youngest to the Dogtown one since it's closer to our house and I had a great friend who offered to share her private party viewing area with us. 

I paid $20 to park in a big lot a few blocks away from St. James the Greater where we would be watching the parade.  We met up with friends Kayla and Andrew and made the trek together.  St. Louis weather is completely unpredictable and some parades are held with snow on the ground and 30 degree weather but we completely lucked out (at first) and had a warm 70+ degree afternoon.  Lauren was pretty entertained by all of the crazy costumes and accessories people were wearing and enjoyed the parade itself.  2 hours into the parade it started to rain so we decided that we would start walking back to the cars before the weather got worse.  We got a little wet but it wasn't too bad.  The worse part was that the drive home that normally takes 5 minutes, took an hour and a half!  There were cars everywhere and no police to help direct traffic.  I couldn't believe the mayhem of trying to get home.  We got to the car just in time though because there were downpours, lightning and thunder while we sat in traffic. 

The weather was gorgeous for the first part of the parade, we had a great place to watch it from, and great friends around to make it even more fun.  I'm not sure I've been converted to a faithful parade goer, but I had a great experience with my first one.