Photographing a Pacific Grove Tradition

This was my second year in a row photographing the Pacific Grove Butterfly Parade (see 2025’s parade). It was an unusually warm Saturday for the parade this year, making it feel like the middle of summer! What is the Butterfly Parade about? It is mostly elementary school students representing their class grade in a different theme costume marching through downtown PG with their class banner accompanied by their teacher. There is of course a marching band as well, and the parade concludes with Pacific Grove High School classes of 50 years or more! So banners flew from the class of 1976 all the way to 1971.