Colony Days hits Palmer this weekend

PALMER — Bed races, cooking contests, sales, vendors, ponies, parade floats and reindeer are all sure signs that it’s Colony Days again in Palmer.

But this year, organizers say, the whole thing is bigger and better than it’s every been.

“For the parade, we’re up around 70 entries and climbing,” said Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce director Ralph Renzi.

So, is that more than last year?

“Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah,” Renzi said. “It’s going to be one of our longest parades ever, one of our best. We have a lot of unique entries.”

The list of things you can do at Colony Days is kind of staggering. For instance, you can pick up a flower from the Alaska State Fair, which you can then grow and enter into one of the fair’s contests.

Also, kids can paint up rocks to look like lady bugs and then get a packet of the tiny red fliers to release all at once with a big group of kids

“I’ve got 5,100 lady bugs in my office right now,” Renzi said before adding a joke: “We are hoping no small children get carried away.”

The bed races — which you kind of have to see to understand, they involve rolling gurneys, obstacle courses and tons of goofy costumes — will again have a couple of different categories.

The first, on Friday, is called the Head Honcho Executive Bed Race Challenge, involves teams from local companies pushing their respective CEOs around on the beds. An ongoing rivalry between Matanuska Telephone Association and Matanuska Electric Association will play out there. MTA is the current champion, but MEA has its share of wins as well.

The second bed race is Saturday, with a winner crowned just before the parade. That one’s called the Colony Days Bed Race Invitational.

“We’ve invited teams from several of the schools and several of the businesses to compete,” Renzi

said.

And, though there’s also a scavenger hunt on bicycles, the fun isn’t all human-powered. The usual gigantic classic car show scheduled for Friday evening should fill up Colony Way, and behind the Train Depot the Antique Power Club will host an antique tractor pull.

“They make a ton of noise, but it’s a blast,” Renzi said.

As for the vendors, Renzi said there’s more of those this year than ever. And there’s actually two sets of them. In addition to the vendors in the usual spot in downtown where the Friday Fling happens each week, the Colony House Museum is hosting a Tent City Market in front of the museum.

Renzi not that each event has a sponsor and that the whole thing comes together as a result of a lot of volunteer work.

“It’s just a great group of folks dedicated to showing folks all over Alaska why Palmer is Alaska at it’s best,” he said. “These folks just basically want to put a bow tie on the city for the weekend.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.