60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival - Part Four, The Lobster Parade

by Jonathan M. Forester, Posted Aug 5th 2007 @ 5:09PM

Today is the day of the big parade during the 60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, Maine. I won't have too many actual food photos, but I don't think you folks will mind since the whole parade is to celebrate everything lobster. One of the finest foods to crawl the ocean floor.

I have been so busy mornings of the festival that I haven't made it to the main food tent before 11am when they start serving the lobsters. But, every morning from 7am to 11am is an all you can eat blueberry pancake extravaganza for just $5.00 Today I finally made it there to take a quick look around before I ran off to the parade on Main Street.

More after the jump.

Blueberry Pancake volunteers hard at work.

The younger volunteers are busy too.

Father / daughter pancake breakfast.

The crowds are lining the streets for at least a mile and the parade doesn't start for awhile yet.

Here it comes.

Alice Knight, the Grand Marshal of the 60Th Maine Lobster Festival has been a 35 year volunteer, but even more amazing is that she has attended every single one of the 60 years of the festival.

Every now and then you have to blow your own horn.

World's Greatest Grandpa and a Korean War Vet. During the parade every military officer who was part of the event jumped out of their vehicles and shook his, and every other Vets hand. This caused major clapping and cheering by the crowds. This is a VERY patriotic part of the US, which I agree with wholeheartedly.

You may have a difficult time making it out but this drummer is spinning her padded drums sticks so fast you can't hardly see them.

Big man in a little big truck.

There were around a dozen of these guys in mini-trucks racing around like crazy. They boogied by so fast and just missing me as I knelt in the street. The could turn on a dime and just whip these suckers into circles at a very high speed. I thought I was going to get hit a bunch of times but I held my ground and felt the wind of their passing.

Mermaids having a hot time on the town today.

I had no clue what the Red Hat Society was until I googled it just now. Way to go ladies!

The 2006 Sea Goddess saying goodbye after her year of fun.

Women with whips always stir up the crowd.

King Neptune and the new 2007 Maine Sea Goddess.

These guys in the mini-race cars were speeding around and getting even closer than the trucks did. They actually touched me a few times.

Giving pizza a thumbs up, or pizza giving a thumbs up?

She's got a great view of the parade.

There were more than a dozen of guys in go-carts and they had this ramp going up and over a truck. As the truck slowly drove along the parade route the go-carts would drive up and over it in both directions at very high speed.

Jumping rope on a unicycle.

This is the end of the parade. It took several hours and was several miles long. How long? This long!

A line has formed for the festival that goes clear out of sight.

Time to head back to the lobster tent. I missed breakfast and I'm getting hungry.

That triple lobster dinner looks good.

Look at that big tub of hot steamy lobsters.

Ah, a triple lobster dinner with my name on it.

Lunchtime. These were some of the sweetest tasting lobsters I have ever had. They were perfectly cooked 1 1/4 pounders, especially since so many places over cook the bugs. They were soft shells, but more in the mid range getting towards hard. They had almost all the meat grown in and were tender, but not mushy, and soooo sweet tasting. I ate the claws and knuckles plain and only used a hint of butter on the tail. Mmmmmmm.... and the local sweet corn made a nice change of taste every now and then. The roll wasn't half bad either at sopping up the juices. Now I need to go home and have a nap.

Filed Under: Spirit of Summer, Ingredients
Tags: 60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival, 60thAnnualMaineLobsterFestival, america, breakfast, east coast, lobster parade, lunch, shellfish

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

8-06-2007 @7:54AM Sharon said... Thank you so much for this series... you've succeeded in making me very, very homesick!
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8-06-2007 @1:23PM Erin said... I've loved looking at these images over the last few days! I grew up in Maine and now live in Boston, and at this moment I just want to get in the car and drive straight to my grandmother's house and ask for blueberry pancakes.

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8-11-2007 @9:45AM R said... Great post as usual Jonathan! Makes me wish I was back up there with you.

Keep up the great work here and I'll see ya here in nYc soon. ;-)
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