Light parade

Cold, colder, coldest!

6 December 2009. Last night was thte annual Festival of Lights Parade along Palm Canyon Drive. The appropriate adjective for the parade was cold.

What must have been record numbers turned out for this year's parade. By the time we arrived at our designated watching spot — in front of Koffi — there was no place to park our chairs. Instead, we went across the street to the area in front of the Palm Canyon Theatre to set up along the curb. The fact that the theatre was out selling coffee and cookies as a fund-raiser bolstered our choice.

The parade started about on time, but after the first fire truck went by there was an interminable break, followed by more interminable breaks. Eventually it got going, but then midway through there was another interminable break, this one so long that the police on their motorcycles resorted to cruising the length of the parade route to announce through their megaphones that the parade was not over. There was no indication of what the delay was, but the first entry after the break was an enormous float about a block long — probably it couldn't turn the corner into the parade route!

After experimenting with various settings on the camera — starry night, fireworks, candlelight, night scenery — that mostly produced squiggles, I hit upon "High Sensitivity" as the one that best captured the lights.

But there is no setting that works for marching bands; their little strings of lights just aren't enough to power the pixels.

But check out the slideshow (sidebar) to see for yourself.