I slapped on my handy, dandy sombrero and headed downtown to watch the Santa Barbara Fiesta Parade on Friday.

First up: the cute Fiesta flower girls all dolled up in their homemade outfits, tossing flowers into the crowd. One girl seemed to think she was trying out for the Dodgers or something. There was the wind up quickly followed by her best flower fast ball. She pelted my sombrero with one pretty good.

I asked one of the girls what Viva la Fiesta meant – since that is what they kept yelling out every 10 steps, with all the gusto of a drunken party-goer. She just shrugged, rolled her eyes, and explained rather seriously that she was just told to say it.

Pedro the Burro was not nearly as cooperative or enthusiastic about the parade. He seemed determined to walk only with the big horses. He was digging in his heels, and resisting his owner’s attempts to drag him down the street until his taller, statelier, more majestic cousins approached. Once the big horses caught up to him, he fell right in line with them. I think he thought that was his rightful place.

I heard a native Santa Barbarian say, “Wow, there sure are a lot of horses in this parade.” Apparently you can live in this town for years and be entirely clueless that this is one of the biggest equestrian parades in the state.

Horses, horses and more horses. They were ridden bythe young,  the old , the older still, by men, by women, all with  riders in costume and looking quite fabulous. We had horses pulling carts, horses dancing, horses being ridden, high steppers, and search and rescue workers, and I even heard that one horse threw its rider and went solo for a bit.

Between all of the horses there were bands. Of course, the  marching mariachis had the best look. But here’s the odd thing. One of the marching bands from Oxnard made no effort whatsoever to look the part. They showed up in standard marching band apparel.

They should have followed the example of Santa Barbara High School’s marching band and dressed with a bit of Fiesta Flavor. I mean, really how hard is it? You throw on some black pants, a white shirt, and tie a red sash around your waist and presto-magico, you look all Fiesta-ish. Heck if you add a black hat, a cowboy hat or sombrero you are really going all out.

After a few hours in the sun, watching all the horses, we headed home only to find our pup enjoying Fiesta in his own way — taking a siesta!