Play those pipes!

Yesterday our friends and neighbors Sean and Suzanne came with us to that most exotic of regional festivals, the Seattle Scottish Highland Games. We ate meat pies, saw excellent tartans, lots of kilts, extremely difficult athletic endeavors, and bagpipe band competitions. At the opening and closing ceremonies we heard my favorite part of the whole thing - the "massing of the pipes" which is a truly awesome experience.

This was our view as we watched the closing ceremonies and flag lowering. We were right in front of the flags in the first row, so we got a fantastic look/listen to the whole thing. There were probably 25 bands represented, must have been over 150 pipes. They really pulled out all the stops for the closing ceremony, It was quite a sight.

Up top is a movie snippet of the massing of thepipes as they approached. They came really close to us, right up behind the color guard, who are approaching in the photo to the right. I had to stop taking the movie because it was way too engrossing to just watch 'em.