I told my husband I wanted to go to Dublin for St. Patrick's day...

I'd never seen a big parade balloon before!

Dan and I got up bright and early and drove down to Dublin.  As you can see from the pictures, it was FOGGY!  I had to drive pretty slow on the highway in a few spots.  It remained pretty foggy the whole way down.

Dan and I had arranged a room at a local hotel for the evening.  We parked close to the hotel and scoped out the parade route.  We were lucky it was a relatively warm day for the middle of March in Ohio.  Seeing that no one was really crowding the streets yet, we decided for a quick breakfast at the McDonalds right there on the parade route.  It was crowded there.

A car with personality.

After a fresh coffee, we stood at our places.  We were at the very start of the parade.  Everyone was in a generally upbeat mood.  The parade was very nice.  Being an election year, we were handed MANY "Vote For Me" flyers and shook many hands.  You can see some parade highlights from the pictures.  The parade lasted a little over an hour.

After the parade, we walked uptown to one of the pubs to listen to the Capp City Pipes and Drums.  They are very good.  I settled in with a pint and listened to them play.  We were a bit disappointed that they only played about 45 minutes.  They didn't go anywhere after that.  So, we finished up our pints and walked around in search of more frivolity.  But, we soon found out that after the parade, the town is pretty much done with their celebrations.  Everyone packed up and headed home.  It was barely 2:00 p.m.  We called the hotel to cancel because we figured we'd drive home.

We stopped first to eat at a restaurant called Jason's.  If I had to list my top five favorite meals ever, the seafood pasta dish I had at Jason's is right up there.  I would make a trip back to Dublin just for that dish again.

We'll probably go back down for the parade again next year, we were just a little sorry to see there wasn't more celebration.  It was a VERY nice parade, though.