Whew! The Labor Day holiday weekend was beautiful, sunny and jam-packed with so many events it was hard to keep up.
The Wagon Days Big Hitch Parade, once small, has grown from a one-day event into the centerpiece of a days-long celebration that brings people together from all over the West—and beyond.
The Ketchum parade now attracts estimates of up to 20,000 people and for many years has included the participation of a delegation of students and officials from its sister city, Tegernsee, Germany.
Other events have grown with the parade and around it: the Pancake Breakfast, Fiddlers' Contest, Kids Carnival, Blackjack Ketchum Shootout, Sun Valley Ice Show, Gallery Walk, Silver Car Auction, antique fairs and the Duck Race.
This year, the sold-out Bonnie Raitt concert kicked off what looked to be a record-breaking weekend.
Bellevue bookended the other side with its charming parade, concerts and barbecues on Sunday.
Sleeper events like the Cowboy Poetry readings that followed the Ketchum parade have potential to expand the weekend's horizons even further.
The sheer number of activities conjurs up visions of impossible gridlock to many, but that's not the case at all.
The city of Ketchum manages the event well. Traffic is diverted around Main Street, and parking around town is sufficient even with a hunk of it removed by the breakfast, carnival and fiddle contest. People are unfailingly courteous and friendly, just happy to be here.
Every year leading up to the big weekend, a handful of disgruntled locals say they will avoid Ketchum and Sun Valley over Labor Day weekend because it's too busy and crowded.
And it's probably best that they stay home, because the enormous fun quotient, would probably kill anyone that grumpy.
The Wagon Days Big Hitch Parade is remarkable for the thousands of hours of time the entries represent. The teams of horses and mules are tenderly trained and cared for—just ask anyone who watched a fallen mule wait patiently to be untangled and re-hitched so the show could go on. The wagons are painstakingly restored. The costumes are planned down to the footwear. The century-old Big Hitch is a marvel to behold. The bands and musicians play with a flourish.
Participants and volunteers do this not for the prize money, but for the joy that comes with preserving pieces of the Old West and sharing them with an appreciative audience.
If Wagon Days were a Broadway play, it would receive rave reviews and standing ovations. Here in the West, a wave of the hat and a big "Yee-haw" will do.
