Day Fourteen - Friday, 4 July - Part I

When Bill planned this whole trip the pivotal point about the timing was to see an Independence Day celebration in Small Town America. He and Bob enjoyed what they experienced a few years ago in Sandy, Utah, and Bill was hoping to provide a similar Cultural Experience for his family.

We left Lamont just after breakfast and headed for Blackwell for the 11:00 am parade. We arrived just after the start and so missed the beauty queen, which disappointed Bob. The main features of this parade that stuck in my mind were the emergency service vehicles hooting their horns and screaming their sirens,


the Shriners in their odd little hats driving their odd little cars,


the dog walkers' club


-- you thought I was kidding -- and a collection of gas guzzling cars.



I thought these were the prettiest, but there were lots of cars from the 70's as well. Like


and


and


( I saved the best for last)

My pictures remind me there was much, much more -- well some more anyhow. There were motorcycles

and trucks


I was impressed with the turn-out of all these vehicles considering gas was close to $4.00 a gallon, at least 50 cents higher than when we were there in November. When I left the US in 1995 it was about $1-1.15 (when I started driving in 1972, it was only $0.24 a gallon, but let's not go there.) There were also civic groups


and church groups


and the obligatory stilt walker



There were even more cars -- race cars, I think (very noisy), but I got a bit bored with cars after a while. The crowd was kind of fun to watch as well.




I did feel there was some irony in a bunch of Brits waving American flags at a 4th of July parade.



There are at least 3 videos of the whole thing and probably more photos than people living in Blackwell and Lamont combined. I think that means the parade was an International Success.

We had such a fun-filled, photogenic day that I've decided to break this up into more than one post. I'm afraid you'll just have to contain your excitement!