Pipes, Pooches, and Plans

Most of today was spent on indoor/ outdoor projects.  While I cleaned the house, tore apart the bed and washed everything (in preparation to put on dust mite resistant covers) and baked a banana cake to use up some over-ripe fruit, Rick spent the morning outside raking the last half of the back yard. (And we have a BIG back yard.)  We each took the morning to complete all of our tasks.

After lunch we ran a few, short errands and then relaxed a bit.  After dinner, we ventured downtown to watch the Bagpipe bands.

To celebrate its very Scottish heritage, Dunedin holds its annual Highland Games, complete with bagpipe competitions, Scottish dancers, sheepherding border collies, and caber and stone throws. They even throw bales of hay as a part of the traditional competition!  Our little town boasts one of the largest Scottish Highland Games in the entire United States.

We are going to the games tomorrow with our nephew, Jon.  Another big part of the Games are the concerts.  Each group plays something with a Celtic flair... be it contemporary music, traditional Scottish fare, and even hard rock -- complete with bagpipes as parts of the bands.  Although the weather promises mid-day storms, a little downpour may be preferable to the scalding hot weather we had at the Games last year.

The Highland Games celebration has been going on all week.  Tonight was the second annual bagpipes band parade.  The parade consisted of bagpipe groups, Scottish dance groups, and even Scotty dogs!

In addition to four bagpipe bands from Dunedin, we also saw bands from area communities as well as groups from Atlanta, Georgia, and New York.  The parade has grown from last year, and it was a fun (although still short) event.

We are looking forward to a fun day tomorrow as Dunedin displays that it is a unique place in which to live.