American Celebration on Parade! aka Parade Float Museum!

On our way through Virginia we got to go to a place I've been wanting to check out for years! It is called American Celebration on Parade and is part of the Shenandoah Caverns attraction in Shenandoah, Virginia. It was right in the middle of our six hour drive and weird, so perfect!

It is basically a warehouse full of old parade floats! When you come in the front door this huge clown guy is hanging over the ticket booth. You pay your fee, then walk through the doors into a wonderland of floats.

I didn't get a great shot of the whole place to show you the sheer magnitude of this place, but it was gigantic! It was surreal to walk around all of these huge cool floats. And look at those giant parrots!

What we learned here was that the same floats are used over and over, year after year. These ducks had many lives and outfits. The one I remember was a singing in the rain float. Lots of these were from Rose Bowl floats.

Some floats had buttons to push for motion. With this one the dragon moves and Poseidon waved his trident. I think the sea horses bobbed too! You can see that lady in the pink for scale.

Don't worry, you can live out your fantasy of waving from a parade float! There are several you are allowed to climb on. I wish I could ride to work everyday under a light up crown from a Mardi Gras!

Cool. Do you like the chandeliers and gold fringe hanging everywhere? It was beautiful!

The person who drove this big head had to look out through the nose holes! Awesome!

The mama elephant and her baby might have been my favorite. You could walk under her and see up inside to the cavity where the driver would sit. It was basically just wood slats and levers!

When you pressed a button the baby elephant swung back and forth.

Photo ops galore!

So American Celebration on Parade is awesome, even if it has kind of a weird confusing name. And outside there is a giant cootie to take your photo with! Yes! What a perfect travel stop!