WEST SEATTLE — The time is about 8 a.m. on July 19. On California Avenue SW, small pockets of police and volunteers are starting to gather in preparation for the annual American Legion Grand Parade, part of this Seattle neighborhood’s Hi-Yu Festival.

Regular entrants into the parade, the team representing the Marysville Strawberry Festival hasn’t fully arrived. Having traveled separately from the main convoy, a few are found hanging around in a local bagel shop, grabbing a quick breakfast.

“It’s just so much fun,” said Mario Rojas, father of Strawberry Festival junior ambassador Franqui Rojas. “Whenever I can’t make it to these things, because of work or whatever, I don’t like it.”

A passerby outside the shop waves to Mario Rojas. He waves back but shrugs, admitting it was nobody he knows.

Out on California Avenue barricades now block the street and various organizations providing floats for the parade are starting to put together their units. Other groups arrive to decorate everything from pick-up trucks to a school bus.

Just before 9 a.m. and pretty much right on time, the Strawberry Festival trailer pulls in after its roughly 30-mile trip down I-5. Carrying the last of the junior royalty as well as more volunteers, three other vehicles are directed to nearby parking spaces. Those volunteers return quickly and the process of setting up the Strawberry Festival float gets underway.

Backing the float out of its trailer is the first hurdle. Several volunteers stand on either side of the float as a driver, operating pretty much in the dark, slowly moves the float down a short ramp. Once the float hits the street, the real work begins.

The theme for this year’s float is fancifully Middle Eastern, with minarets and genie lamps, not to mention a man-sized strawberry, complete with arms, legs and a smiling face, riding a moving magic carpet. As the float emerges from the trailer, the various components are piled on top of the unit. Each has to be put in its proper place. How long does the work take?

“It depends on how many hands we have,” said volunteer and festival board member Carol Kapua.

The first step is letting down the sides of the float. After that comes what appears to be organized chaos. The half-dozen or so volunteers tackle everything from pounding in the float’s exhaust pipes to putting up the already mentioned minarets. There are few snags this morning and the float is ready to roll in about 40 minutes.

The float’s driver sits in a small space partly hidden by the strawberry man’s flying carpet. Volunteer Quincy Bontager is demonstrating how the float is operated.

The unit is powered by a normal car motor with an automatic transmission. The gas and brake pedals are in the usual spots in front of the driver, but the steering wheel sits off to the side, which Bontager said takes a little getting used to. He’s offered a cup of coffee that he initially turns down. Then he finds out he’s actually the driver for that morning’s parade. He accepts the coffee afterall.

Like Kapua, a volunteer and festival board member, Jodi Hiatt notes the crew is in for what could be an exhausting day. One of the longest parades of the 20-plus parades the team will take part in, the American Legion event is also only the first of this particular day for the Marysville team. The float is due later that afternoon in Olympia for the Lakefair Grand Parade. That means there only will be a short time to tear down the float at the end of the West Seattle event and quickly hit the road for the state’s capital. The festival’s senior royalty will ride in that parade.

But even after that event, the weekend’s work isn’t quite finished. After the Olympia parade, the float comes apart once more, gets loaded in its trailer and trucked back to Seattle for the Chinatown Community Parade to be held the next day. The float will sit in Seattle overnight, while the crew heads home to Marysville only to return the next day.

Are the parades and events worth all the effort?

“It’s joyful,” said junior royalty ambassador Julie Hodgen.

“We’re having so much fun,” said mom Jan Hodgen. “I’m watching her grow up. We’ve seen them in situations they wouldn’t normally be in.”

“I don’t think people quite realize it, but we’re out here promoting the city,” Bontager said.

“And you are on from the minute you get up,” Hiatt adds, noting without words but with a grin that a big smile is part of the Marysville festival uniform.