Opening was a prayer. The lady here did a sign language translation -



Was followed up by Color Guard done by Native American Warrior's Society of Texas and a flyover -





During the Direction Song and the Pipe Ceremony we were requested not to photograph.

Here is Arby and his brother blessing the corral where Lightning and his herd with stay -



The spear that was part of the blessing -



The rest of the ceremony was a lot of VIPs. You have never heard so many "were as" in you life to you get a lot of government reps reading proclamation after proclamation.

Some of the other activities were of course the vendors. Things like this always bring them out, especially those gutters ones. There were buffalo food available from several vendors. I guess nothing honors the calf like grilling up some of his relatives. The tacos were quite good. Ran out of money before getting down to the fry bread. Bummed as I keep hearing about it but haven't gotten a chance to try it.

There were a couple bummers. Couldn't where a kilt as they had requested nothing above the knee and long sleeves. Though it seems most of the people thought they were above respecting the requests. I was in jeans and a button up. Unfortunately this made me look like the model "pale face" ad there were several comments about "pale faces" by a guest speaker. Also got snubbed rather badly by a couple of people. I guess I could understand the dislike sometimes but most of the ceremony was about being one Nation, not Native, African, Oriental or white but just Americans.

Jim