Gay Pride Day in Winnipeg

[crowdog66]

Yesterday Winnipeg held its annual Gay Pride Parade, with close to a thousand people turning up to march. It was a great time, and I was able to take some pictures.



Here are Robin (on the left) and Andrea on the steps of the Manitoba Legislature (where the marchers gathered before heading out), holding our banner:



And here in cockatiel_art:



Looking east on the steps:



Looking west-ish on the steps:



Looking up the steps:



And then waaaaaaaaaaay up:



In front of the steps, part 1:



In front of the steps, part 2:



One of the people in front of the steps -- oooooooh, cute puppy!



And some "Hate is Not a Family Value" and "Straight But Not Narrow" signs, also in front of the steps:



Those drag queens I promised you -- and yes, that IS Astroturf:



And a really cute cowboy and Indian:



Now, on to the parade! There were a LOT of people; no camera shot could have done justice to the sheer numbers of human beings walking, dancing, and singing.

Here's Robin marching in the parade (her first Gay Pride Day):



And here's Kathy (on the left, in the rainbow lei) -- it was her first Gay Pride Day also:



Andrea (on the left) and cockatiel_art:



A fellow with a rainbow cape and umbrella:



And a really cute couple who walked ahead of us on the last leg of the march:



The parade took over an hour to wend its way through downtown Winnipeg and back to the Legislature, where the crowd broke up and went to a nearby park where a bandstand provided music and various vendors had set up under a large tent. It was so packed in the vendor tent that walking was almost impossible, but I managed to get to one particular merchant and get an airbrushed temporary tattoo:



And this last picture pretty much sums up how I felt after it was all over:



After the march, Robin and cockatiel_art went to Carlos & Murphy's, a Mexican restaurant in Osborne Village, where we chowed down on excellent food and relaxed our tired feet. All in all, quite a successful day. I even got designated as a Parade Marshall, along with Andrea, since each group walking with a banner had to have at least one. The badge I got as a result is a souvenir I'll treasure for a long time to come.