4 of July, a day later....

This is the day that I work, so decided to start early on this.

What beautiful weather. It is great to live in Idaho. (and I have been else where, and I still say this).

The 4th of July parade in downtown
Sandpoint was wonderful. The people
who worked so hard on all of it. The kids
parade and the parents that walked the
6 blocks with the kids and their bikes were
great. The red, white and blue costumes
and decorations.

The main parade was really done well.
A lot of people who worked so hard on it
for the past weeks. The Lions Club, who
has been working on it for months. Only flaw
was who was the Grand Marshall, some woman,
and I am sure she must be important, but the
crowd didn't know, nor did I. (which made me
feel better that I wasn't the only one.)

And my hat really goes off to the bands.
The Sandpoint High School band, was
fabulous! And of course the Bagpipe and
Drum bands were awesome. Both of them.
The Albeni one and the one from St. Joseph's.
Two great bunch of people. They have come
so far from their first time here. And
Honorable mention has to be the Rhythm Pirates.

I usually park way from the madden crowd.
Then walk in to (about 6 blocks)town and find
a good place near the beginning of the parade
to sit or stand. Then when the tail goes by me,
I make a mad dash back to the car, and out of
town I go before the masses start. I am home
by the time the parade end has reached the top
of Cedar Street.

In the afternoon, there is the cookout. The
usual, hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, salads
and etc. In the younger days we would have
big cookouts, because our kids were home
and they usually had a friend with them. So
multiply each kid by 1 to 2 friends and it was
full yard. But always full of laughs and good
food. This year, we are going to our daughter's
as we have for each of the past 5 or 6 years.
We always enjoy ourselves. And this year was no
exception. She and her main squeeze, out did
themselves. The food was great. Smokies,
hamburgers, pork roast sliced and BBQ sauce
and his did a great job on the ribs. The deviled
eggs were great as she always does. There was
so much food. That with 5 adults and a teenager
there was some left over. We sat at the picnic
table as we watched the teenager set off some
noisy fireworks, leaving the light ones for dark.
With way more adult supervision than I am sure
he wanted..but he put up with us anyway. lol.
We left early in the evening, and the 3 of them
headed to the beach for music and fireworks.

Fireworks started several days ago, like most
neighborhoods. And last night was the big
blast, I think... I will find out tonight. It lasted
until midnight, starting at 9. (this is better than
the towns do.) First one neighbor, then another...
then two of them alternating. Maybe if everyone
brought their fireworks to one place in town and
each one gets to step up to an area, and set off
their fireworks we could have a dust to dawn
fireworks. lol.

So hopefully everyone had a safe 4th of July.
Like I have said before ... it is my favorite
holiday. It is warm. (this weekend was
beautiful.) you gets lots to eat, you have
parades, fireworks... and no pressures for
gifts. It is a great holiday.