We went over to downtown Oldsmar today for Oldsmar Days. This is a three-day event with carnival rides, food trucks/booths, entertainment and merchant and community organization booths, all in a city park by the waterfront.
The highlight for us is the community parade on Saturday featuring the parade of vintage Oldsmobiles by members of the Olds Club of Florida, who bring their cars, parade them, and put them on display in the park after the parade.
It is a neat community event. We have been to one several years ago and wanted to go again. Little has changed. The parade was a real "down home" event with people in the parade throwing Mardi Gras beads and trinkets. This parade also had a number of "tricked out" Jeeps from a local Jeep club. Of course, all the local and regional politicians were represented, riding in convertibles, waving, smiling and sometimes throwing beads.
After the parade, we had some authentic Southern BBQ from a food booth, listened to the band playing retro 70's rock music, checked out the Oldsmobiles on display in the park then returned to the RV in mid- afternoon.
So why Oldsmobiles in Oldsmar? Well, in 1916, Ransom E. Olds, the automobile pioneer who founded the "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" in 1897, purchased the land, now Oldsmar, to build a planned community halfway between Tampa and St. Petersburg. The area evolved over the years and is now a fairly quite small city of about 13,000 residents. It is an interesting story. Here is some more information about Oldsmar and the history of the Oldsmobile auto.
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