It was worth crawling out of the bed after only three hours of sleep to see the Dragon*Con parade Saturday morning. I guess the Macys Thanksgiving Parade childhood excitement never left me because there I was on the sidelines again, cheering on the participants.

The gaggle of Padmes was definitely a crowd pleaser. Maybe it was the attention to detail, or the copious skin exposure, or the fact there were so many of them. The 501st represented the evil portion of the Star Wars contingent: stormtroopers, bounty hunters, various Imperial officers, and Darth Vader to catch our attention.

Of course it wouldn’t be a science fiction parade without the Klingon delegation. They brought vehicles for their display and were even sober enough to walk a straight line, which impressed me to no end-knowing the Klingon weakness for Blood Wine.

A childhood dream to taunt the members of COBRA was finally realized as I harassed their contingency mercilessly. But they were very good sports about it.

Among the other more colorful participants of the parade included the Weyr fan group, a group devoted to Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novel series.

If that was the end of the parade, I would have been satisfied. However, the fan groups brought guests. Roddy Piper hammed it up for the crowd, George Takei hailed the Star Trek fans, Lou Ferrigno (the “Hulk”) flexed his purty muscles, and the cast of The Tribe waved.

And finally, it was a good thing Hogwarts sent the convicts from the Department of Azkaban to clean up behind the parade.