Once in a Lifetime

Yesterday, we had an opportunity that may only come once in a lifetime. The Olympic torch was coming right through our little community! So I did what any good parent would do, and let my kids skip school for an hour to watch. ;)

Here they are, all bundled up for an hour in the winter chill. It was actually a fairly mild January day - only -9C (15F).

A media helicopter circled above us. (What a great shot, eh? lol)

No Canadian parade would be complete without numerous RCMP vehicles. (For my American friends, that's Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And yes, they do still ride horses. Though possibly only in parades.)

Good ol' Royal Bank of Canada, sponsors of the 2010 Olympics. These guys were handing out flags and pumping up the crowd.

An Olympic bus. Guess they needed to add a couple vehicles to make the parade longer.

Of course, Coca Cola is sponsoring the Olympics! And all the athletes will drink Coke for commercials, while secretly thinking that we all know Pepsi is better.

Yup. Coke = happiness. Definitely. ;)

Ooooh, look! Off in the distance. People running!

Closer now.

Right in front of us. Wooohooo!!!!

And...gone. (Funny, the lady beside me seems to think I was snapping a picture of her, so she gave me a nice, big, Olympic-cheer smile.)

Overall, I found it pretty anticlimactic. Especially since the torch looked a lot more like a rolled up tube of paper on fire than the torch I was expecting. But the kids seemed impressed. The only thing they weren't impressed with was that I dropped them back off at school.

For those interested, THIS is what the 2010 torch looks like up close. THIS is what I was expecting to see.