Summer fun at Boxcar Days
Despite high temps, Tracy’s festival brought people together
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TRACY -- It takes a lot to keep Tracy area residents from celebrating Boxcar Days. Even though temperatures climbed into the 90s on Monday, people still lined Sixth and Morgan Streets to watch the annual Boxcar Days grand parade.
Of course, with the hot weather, a couple of parade units that had squirt guns were extra popular with kids in the crowd.
"Spray me! Spray me!" one person called out from the crowd as a parade rider spritzed people with water.
Tracy's annual festival brought plenty of people into town over the weekend, and there was plenty to enjoy from the downtown carnival to Saturday night's street dance and the Miss Tracy scholarship program. On Monday morning, people lined up for a pancake breakfast at the Tracy city airport, and checked out the aircraft arriving and taking off on the runway.
Frederick Berning said his favorite part of the fly-in was "the airplane" – a Sanford Air Med medical plane that visited Tracy along with a Sanford helicopter.
"We love that they come every time," said Frederick's mom Amber Berning. Fly-in visitors could climb aboard the Air Med plane for a look around.
Many of the people gathered in Tracy for Boxcar Days said they make an annual visit for the festival. Kallie Baumann said her husband is originally from Tracy, and their family all got together over Boxcar Days weekend.
"We took the camper and went to grandpa's," she said. On Monday, the Baumanns were checking out classic cars parked at the airport for the fly-in breakfast. With events like the carnival and parade, Boxcar Days was an exciting time for the kids in the family. "They've been looking forward to it all summer," she said.
Although he lives in Marshall now, Earl Wiering said watching the Boxcar Days parade has been a tradition for him since he was a boy.
"When I was a kid we lived south of Tyler, and we always came to this," Wiering said.
On Monday, Wiering had set up lawn chairs for his wife and himself at a spot on the parade route. Normally, they would sit in a place along Sixth Street, he said, but this year they moved to a shadier place near the corner of Morgan Street.
Wiering said he's been to the Boxcar Days parade at some memorable times - like in 2018, when a torrential rain put a stop to the fun. "We got just soaked," he said. But aside from that one rain-out, he said, "It's a good parade."