Bunker Hill Parade

I was a little upset at the weather on Saturday afternoon to have stopped me from completing The Freedom Trail. On the next day – Sunday – after visiting Trinity Church and I felt my feet could still handle an hour or two more of walking, I headed to Bunker Hill ostensibly to complete the Trail. And as it turned out – surprisingly – that I had to complete the last segment of the Trail on a different day was the best thing to have happened in this trip so far.

As luck would have it: that very Sunday afternoon was when the community was having their Bunker Hill Day Parade commemorating June 14th, and 235th Anniversary of the Revolutionary War Battle!

The parade saw 1,500 participants and didn’t just comprise reenacting contingents from that period: there were also representation from the last World War, with veterans parading with them too:

And every now and then, one of the period contingents would stop, and fire off a volley with their rifles, complete with instructions commanded to them by their leading reenacting officer – much to the delight of onlookers. Like this bunch below: which fired off a volley right in front of me and sent my ears ringing for several minutes.:)

And just about to fire:

I didn’t get a picture of the rifles firing off at that exact moment, but got it on video. See the next post.:)

I ran with the parade, and must have taken several hundred pictures – totally exhausting the D300 battery. It might had been a funny sight for the locals too: it was a largely local town affair with very few tourists in sight – and there was this obviously Asian guy with a DSLR in one hand and a HD Videocam in the other, running with the parade like an event photographer.:)

It was a terrifically colorful and warm affair. Many of the townsfolk knew the parade participants, so there was plenty of waving, cheering on their friends.

The contingents occasionally stopped to give some separation space from one to the next. Several looked at me curiously: I’m assuming they don’t get to see many Asian tourists wielding large DLSRs and backpacks running after them and shooting them on drive mode.:)

And what parade would be complete without belly-dancing girls..?! :)

The county sheriffs following the parade and ensuring traffic security:

Vote for Tim Flaherty.:)

The parade was going up towards the Bunker Hill Monument. More on it plus videos in the next post.:)