Santa Cruz Pride
Started: 2024-06-18 20:37:39
Submitted: 2024-06-18 21:43:11
Visibility: World-readable
Watching Santa Cruz's pride parade on Pacific Ave
Santa Cruz celebrated Pride at the beginning of June, so I went down to Pacific Ave to watch the parade.
I arrived just as the Santa Cruz High marching band was marching past to start the parade. I found a spot under a tree in front of Pacific Wave to watch the parade, giving me a reasonable view of the parade.
I didn't recognize the name of the person identified as the parade grand marshal, but I did notice that they were in a small boat on a trailer, which meant they were in a parade float that would actually float in water.
UC Santa Cruz marched in the parade, with mascot Sammy the Slug (an anthropomorphic banana slug) bringing up the end of the group.
The parade had a random assortment of groups, companies, and civic organizations. There were several cheerleading groups, a couple of dog-grooming outfits, and couple of banks (Chase had an entry in the parade, and a booth in the expo across from me on Pacific Ave). Sponsor Sutter Health had a large entry; Kaiser had what looked like five people walking behind a large sign. There were several local education groups; I think it was in the county education office's group that I saw the "school librarians read with pride" sign.
The Marine Mammal Center (whose main office is in Sausalito, with a satellite operation in Moss Landing) brought a plush pinniped on a rainbow-decorated furniture dolly. (I'd be worried about bringing anything with small wheels on a parade, but Pacific Ave is probably less hostile to small wheels than Market Street in San Francisco; it's covered in trolley tracks and littered with grates and I've watched more than one person in stilts or heals walk carefully around the grates as they walked down Market Street.)
One poster revealed the secret of the gay agenda, so now we know.
A local group of Democrats reminded us that "Democrats don't shoot puppies", suggesting that they're trying to keep reminding everyone of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
Santa Cruz Public Libraries brought their book truck drill team but marked out the "precision" on their banner. I only saw one book truck stunt as they walked past me pushing the book trucks, which was one book truck turning around in a circle.
One thing I didn't see at the pride parade (unlike San Francisco's pride parade) were large tech companies; just about every Silicon Valley tech company sends a group to San Francisco with thousands of people in matching rainbow t-shirts. (I wore my Apple Pride t-shirt, from marching with Apple two years ago.) The only tech company I saw was local EVTOL startup Joby, trying to build aircraft that are effectively car-sized battery-powered quad-copter drones. (This makes them even more capital-intensive and speculative than the startup I work for.)
Santa Cruz High School's marching band returned for the end of the parade, wrapping up the parade in a tidy hour (much faster than San Francisco's parade, which would probably take an hour to get more than one group all the way down Market Street).
After the parade, Pacific Ave converted into an expo with booths lining the street (many of them representing groups from the parade) open for whatever activity they were promoting. I looked around the expo for a bit then headed home, with my own pride flag flying on my deck.
I took a few more pictures at Santa Cruz's pride parade; they're all at Photos on 2024-06-02.
