On the day of Pride, traffic downtown was predicted to be a major cluster f@!ck. The Orlando Come out with Pride Parade was going on as I taught classes at Elite Animation Academy. That day roads would also be closed for a soccer game at the Amway Center and something at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. I thought that getting to Elite would be a challenge, but streets had not been blocked off yet.
That evening I scheduled the 8th Orlando Urban Sketch Workshop at Lake Eola. With the parade over, I figured some of the crowd would have dispersed. Getting home from work, I skirted downtown by driving around the congested streets. The last few blocks were a challenge but I made it back to the studio fairly easily.
Attendance for the workshop was down. I imagine people weren’t up to the challenge and adventure of trying to park downtown. Pam Schwartz had walked in the parade with members and families involved in the onePULSE Foundation. Since she was downtown, we met and walked around Lake Eola together. I settled on this view of the fountain as my pride sketch for the year. A drone hovered above the lake.
Fireworks were slated to happen at 9 PM which gave me plenty of time to sketch the Orlando skyline. I started to put the tablet away, when the fireworks suddenly erupted with a huge series of blasts. It damn near made me jump out of my skin. The fireworks were large and beautiful and I put a few blasts on my sketch while others shot video and took cell phone photos. I often wonder what becomes of all those shots.
After the show, it was easy to walk back to my place and then slip out of downtown. Although many downtown streets were blocked off for the day, Orlando is still small enough so that I never experienced grid lock.