Disclaimer: This has very little to do with fandom or marketing issues that might be of interest to fans.
Yesterday, I attended Chicago’s Pride Parade with a friend. He invited me to attend because Lisa Madigan had invited people to walk in the parade on her Fcebook fanpage. The invite said bring a friend. Lisa Madigan is one of my favorite politicians so it seemed like a really cool opportunity to meet her. I’d also never been to an event like Pride and it felt about time in terms of my own coming out experience.
Lisa Madigan’s float was number 81. The parade officially kicked off at noon. We didn’t leave the holding pen until around 12:45. We didn’t reach the end of the route until about 2:35 pm. It was wild. The whole thing was beyond cool. I probably took 250 pictures. The following are about 100 from that selection.
Click on the image for a larger view. Images are stored on my LiveJournal scrapbook. These have not been cropped.
All sorts of people attended with all levels of mobility. There seemed to be a really good job done at making things handicapped accessible.
The football like object is actually the ball from rugby. I believe the float was for the professional rugby team in Chicago.
Some of the volunteers from Lisa Madigan’s float.
Illinois Lottery float.
People waiting in the holding pen.
I think that is Hamilton College. Lots of hulu hooping took place during the waiting.
The really white white white dude with curly hair reminds me of Alice’s main squeeze Jasper from Twilight.
Lisa Madigan.
That crowd stretched all the way back to the El station at least a block or two away.
It doesn’t seem possible that you could get that many people packed in like that. It was wow, awe inspiring.
Notice the people sitting on the portable toilets.
Equality Illinois.
Young and old attended this.
More people sitting on portable toilets.
Salvation Army giving away free lemonade at their college. Their college was bordered on two sides by this parade. No place to escape from it.
People sitting on tops of street markers. People were all over places that make you go “Huh. Is that safe? and how did you get there?”
The halfway mark?
The police.
The Green Man.
Hiding the protesters.
The protesters.
A political message.
A peek through…
