mikestribe: Pioneer Day Celebration July 23 2016

We had a weekend that wasn't filled with something that needed to be done. So we decided to head to Snowflake AZ for the Pioneer day celebration.
Pioneer day celebrates the arrival of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24 1847.
It is a state holiday in Utah. Several of the small towns in Arizona were settled and established by Mormon pioneers, and those towns celebrate as well.

Snowflake Arizona Temple.

Suppose for a minute that you travel 150 miles to go see a parade in a small town and happen to take a picture of a float and on that float are 2 of your grand kids, who live only 2 miles from your house.
Well that happened. Gunner and Mason, along with a couple of their cousins were on the trash can band float.

Gunner White (in the black shirt)

We had fun at the parade and then went to the car show. Lots of nice cars there on the golf course along with crafts and other vendors. Met one of our previous bishops there, Jim McCoid and his wife Diana.

After the car show we went to the Temple to walk around and look at it. Beautiful building and a great view of the surrounding area.

The Angel Moroni

There were several other activities during the day. BBQ lunch, Navajo taco stands, lots of craft booths set up throughout the town, a quilt show, and used book sale, a quartet singing several broadway show tunes. A play, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. So much to do and not enough time.
The quilt display was amazing, the detail in some of the quilts would make you crazy trying to sew them.

At the end of the day there was a rodeo, all of the usual events were included, wild cow milking, ribbon catching, barrel racing, and they had a cash cow. All the kids 9-12 were invited into the arena and given some quick training, and then 3 calves with token attached to them were let out and the kids chased and the cows and collected the tokens that were on the cows, and turned in for cash.
The poor cows never had a chance.