What we did on the fouth

We went to the parade of course, silly! A good old small town, down home parade. The loudspeakers were mounted on top of Doc's Tavern along with a giant American flag.

People brought their dogs.

Daddy's shoulders provided the best view.

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Half the town was in the parade. If it weren't for us tourists, there wouldn't have been enough people to watch. The scouts provided a color guard, as did the local veterans post, the league of Women voters and anyone else who felt patriotic.

In whatever way struck them.

There was a show of strength from the local fire deprtment, County police, city Police, search and rescue volunteers, and the Coast Guard even sent a helicopter. It's the first parade I've ever seen that had a helicopter flying the parade route.

Kids rode bicycles. Dads pushed kids in strollers and hauled them in wagons. And a whole squad of little battery operated kiddy cars tootled by. Notice the young fellow in yellow checking out the babe in the pink Barbie jeep?

I have about 18 photos of vintage cars, driven by vintage drivers, but when you've seen one 1932 Hudson, haven't you seen them all?

After the parade we went back to the beach house for more of the mandatory maintenence and repair. Entropy has a strong hold at the beach, and if you don't live in a house 24/7, the mildew becomes a permanent tennant.

Then it got dark enough. We drove down to the beach and parked on the sand.

The wind would have taken your hair off. Fortunately, we were all old and wise enough to be bundled in multiple layers with hoodies firmly cinched down. Boom! Kablam!! Popopopopopop!

All up and down the beach, the cacaphony of glee went on. None of these displys were professional.

Some of the photos I got look like galaxies and clusters discovered by the hubble telescope.

DH and RW had some roman candles and some mortars, and one big ground display that fired off ten different star shells. When those were gone, we were just going to sit back and watch the fun around us, but people started getting stupid. There were half a dozen young men just upwind of us who started shooting at one another with roman candles. I wanted to call their mothers! It's lots of fun until someone puts an eye out. They were numerous enough, drunk enough and rowdy enough that we decided we would rather pack it in and move out. Everyone in the vicinity was doing the same.

I had been playing with my lightsticks ever since dusk and continued to play with them even when I got into bed. shiney, shiney. pretty, pretty. bright and interactive. I like lightsticks! No boom, no ow, and no cleanup.

As good citizens, we rolled out the next morning and participated in beach cleanup. The rain was falling sideways. Most folks had taken their refuse out with them, but when we got to where the young idiots had camped, it was a sty! I even found a short case of Hamms beer that had gotten lots in the garbage. The storm in the middle of the night had broken the carboard open and rolled and tumbled the cans till they had burst their seals. The tops were not popped, but the cans were only half full, and if you squeezed a can, salty beer leaked out.

And finally, home again. When you live with an old, blind crap weasle and plan to be gone for a few days, you take precautions. I carpeted the house with newspaper.

Unfortunately, when you live with active young cats, to whom the whole world is a toy, newspapers don't stay where you put them. But on the whole, the cleanup was minimized and we were sooo glad to get home! And the kitties were happy to see us.