OGDEN — The rain rattled on the roof of Tyler Henderson’s stock trailer. He’d come all the way to downtown Ogden from Taylor for the annual Horse and Hitch Parade, and a downpour wasn’t about to keep him from enjoying himself.
So he and his family pulled into a vacant lot on Washington Boulevard, just north of 20th Street, so the open back door of their trailer, which would normally carry their own horses, faced the street. They arranged some lawn chairs inside the trailer and got comfortable as the rain came down Monday evening.
“I’m no fool,” he said.
And right on time, despite the storm, the horses came trotting down the street, their riders smiling and waving at the crowds.
“Real cowgirls and cowboys don’t mind the rain,” Henderson said.
Still, some of the riders came with their own parkas and umbrellas, while a lucky few rode in covered wagons.
Terry McGee did not think she and her family would need coats or umbrellas before they left their Harrisville home for the parade. But the weather changed, and although it wasn’t raining when they left the house, it was coming down by the time the parade started.
They huddled under a tree on the sidewalk for shelter, their 5-year-old and 2-year-old granddaughters sharing a lone umbrella by the side of the road. McGee’s husband, Tom, said he isn’t thrilled by a horse show, but their granddaughters love them, which makes it worth it.
It was an unpleasant wait for the parade at first, said Daniel Gladwell, who stood beside his wife under the awning of Bagels and Buns on Grant Avenue. But once their 3- and 5-year-old children got excited, so much that they jumped up in and down in the rain puddles, it made the experience much better for them, he said.
No one could recall having attended a Horse and Hitch Parade that braved through a rainstorm like the one Monday evening.
Audrey Christiansen, sitting in a lawn chair on the south side of 24th Street under an umbrella, with her 3-year-old son in her lap, remembers last year’s parade was a scorcher.
“I got sunburned at that one. I’m getting soaked at this one,” she said.
But many were grateful for the rain, after so many days of hot, dry weather.
“I’m happy there’s rainwater,” said 9-year-old Easton Hopes, sitting in the trunk of his family’s sport utility vehicle. Like the Henderson’s stock trailer, it was parked in a lot so that the open tailgate faced the parade.
A handful of people did not have to watch the cavalcade of horses, lasso tricks and wagons through a sheet of rain.
By the time the parade reached its last leg at 20th Street and Grant Avenue, the clouds parted for blue skies and sunlight.
David Hardy and his family had been waiting for the show at the corner, and after a long, wet wait, enjoyed a “perfect” parade.
The Pioneer Days events continue this week with a free rodeo for special-needs children today at Lorin Farr Park Pavillion, a downtown hoedown, the Pioneer Days Sunday Concert and more.
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