Travel Blog

I went to the Panthers victory parade on Sunday because I wanted a photo to post along with yesterday’s blog post and, like the man in the John Malcolm Brinnin essay “Travel and the Sense of Wonder,” I “like to see life happening.”

Hania dropped me off at the foot of the Intracoastal bridge on Sunrise, as at that point people on foot, many wearing red Panthers jerseys, were making better progress than those in cars. I walked to Riomar Street, the start of the parade, but at 8:15 not a lot was happening. I headed to El Vez and found a seat outside where I ate a plate of huevos rancheros. I figured I’d need some nourishment for the morning’s ordeal.

Back at Riomar, a bagpiper in a green plaid kilt and a black-and-green Panthers jersey was playing a tune by a parked car. Two drummers stood nearby; they were from the Coral Springs Fire & Rescue. More musicians, and people, gathered at the intersection, and then everyone dispersed as the heavens opened up. Many of us took shelter in the driveway of the Hilton, including a female drummer who told me several bands were marching. Hers, she said, had come up from Miami.

The rain let up and we wandered back to the intersection. Then more sheets were unleashed, and we raced back to the driveway. I charged my phone near a group of musicians whose armbands carried the name Palm Beach.

Eventually I worked my way, under cover, toward the front of the hotel, squeezing past a large potted plant whose purpose, clearly, was to keep me out. Outside Le Marché, I was told that I had entered a private party area, and politely asked to leave. I walked a few steps, in growing puddles, to a larger crowd waiting out the rain. Here I took pictures of two young men, in soaked Panthers jerseys, standing on the sea wall like sentinels. That, I thought would have to do.

But eventually the rain let up, and slowly, very slowly, buses rolled down A1A – first black-windowed coaches and then the big red double-deckers. I stood on the steps of the hotel portico, surrounded by a damp but cheerful crowd. On the step behind me, two Black teenage girls, in braces and cool wire-rim glasses, looked like they were getting a glimpse of Beyonce. A new bus appeared and the woman next to me yelled “Nick! Nick! Nick! Nick Cousins! He's our neighbor!” A few minutes later her husband appeared, his glasses speckled with raindrops. “I saw him look at you!” the woman shouted. “This is the happiest day of my life since we got married!”

Players threw beach balls into the crowd, which were then batted back. Some spectators tossed their cellphones up for players to take their pictures on. After obliging, the players let the phones drop back down.

Finally, the bus carrying the Stanley Cup appeared. Three players stood at the front in red “Conquered the Hunt” T-shirts: the one in the middle held the Cup high, the one on his left, Aleksander Barkov, help up his shoe (backdropped by the Finnish flag), the one on his right drank from his shoe. The blond woman standing next to Cousins’ neighbor asked, “Is that a thing in Finland?”  

The other people on the bus had their cameras and smartphones pointed at the trio, creating a giddy Washington-crossing-the-Delaware tableau.

I wasn’t sure yet, but I figured I had my photo. And, even with the rain – heck, partly because of it – I had seen life happening.