It was an exciting weekend at Goat-O-Rama! Saturday night Beulah had their annual Parade of Lights, and Old Man Winter was in full attendance this year. Some thought we might not make it because of the snowstorm, but we weren’t going to be daunted by a few snowflakes! We did, however, leave the cart at home. We figured the roads would be too icy to use it safely. We blanketed Cuzco and covered the door of our portable hutch so he would stay dry for the ride over. Once there, we loaded him down with packsaddle and festive red panniers filled with candy and then covered him from head to toe in colorful LED lights. He was a lovely sight to see! Of course, the first thing Cuzco did when I plopped a pannier full of chocolate onto his saddle was to turn himself inside-out trying to reach it. He went all the way down on one knee in his effort to get his teeth into those sweets, but I managed to get him back up and straighten him out before he grabbed anything. As a consolation, I did give him a few pieces of chocolate (properly unwrapped!) that were left over after the parade. Cuzco loves chocolate!

We forgot to bring the camera, so I have no pictures of Cuzco decked out for the parade. Phil dressed as Santa and handed candy out to the kids. Well… I say handed. It took a little while for Phil to get his technique down. He started off by tossing candy, but after beaning a few people in the head, and watching others scramble around in the fresh powder to look for their fallen prizes, he changed his approach and started giving people candy by hand. A particularly special moment was when Santa Claus and his special Yule Goat walked up to a little girl and gave her a handful of candy. We saw the girl’s grandmother next day at the Yule Log Festival and she said it made her granddaughter’s evening.

It turned out to be a very good thing we did not have the cart. The road was almost skating rink slick. Phil and Cuzco and I were the only ones walking in the parade–everyone else had a float. So the parade went rather fast for us and I had a hard time making Cuzco keep up on the slippery footing. He quite understandably wanted to take it slow, but we almost had to trot for much of the parade route. I was tired by the end. There was one tricky spot in the parade, however, which made us very grateful to be on foot! The route plunges down a steep hill with a sharp turn at the bottom, and several of the floats began to slide and got jackknifed at the turn. There was a bit of a pileup which we were happily able to avoid. All the trucks and trailers came away unscathed, but it was an exciting little stretch of roadway for a while. For such a small town, Beulah has a very respectable Parade of Lights with a large variety of very impressive floats. It think there are more people who ride in that parade than who watch it!