Bethany Beach Fourth of July Parade

The hour-long celebration features well-designed floats, parade units, marchers of all shapes and ages, clowns, and a sea of 1,200 bicycles ridden by kids who pick up their decoration kits the morning of the parade.

Thousands bring their chairs up from the beach and line the town's streets. The day concludes with an evening concert at the bandstand and fireworks on the beach.

A number of floats are entered each year in the Bethany Beach Fourth of July Parade.

Some are simple entries consisting of club or group members riding aboard flatbeds or wagons, while others are more sophisticated, such as this entry of a pirate's ship in the 1996 parade.

Bethany Beach Fourth of July Parade Units

Like all community parades, civic groups come from far and wide, as well as locally, to participate and promote their organization's activities.

This group of Shriners from Wilmington, Del., has obviously had some practice in parades as it raced figure eights up and down the streets of Bethany.

Fourth of July Parade Marchers

As these photos will attest, there is no limit to the imaginations of the entrants in the Bethany Beach Fourth of July Parade.

Fourth of July Parade Clowns

This pair of clowns was just one of many individual marching groups that joined in the parade, which is open to anyone who wants to decorate themselves or their bikes or their wagons or their floats -- even their baby's stroller.

Fourth of July Parade Bicycles