Coney Island Mermaid Parade

Last weekend Emily, Eric and I headed to Coney Island for their annual Mermaid Parade.  We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  From what I found online, this seemed to be a parade celebrating the official opening of the Coney Island beaches for the summer.  It turns out that it was really just a celebration of the weirdness of Coney Island.  Emily had some friends in town from Ohio for the parade - I didn't realize that they were actually here to be IN the parade!  We show up and they have an "art car" decorated in a tiki hut theme:

 

We got to ride in the car which gave us a pretty prime view of all the crazy people that had come out for the parade in their hand-made costumes.  I still don't really have a good explanation of what the parade was all about but I can tell you that it was very fun, we got to eat some very tasty corn dogs and, somehow, the tiki car WON for best parade float!