4TH of July

The more we thought about parking headaches in town for the festivities, the more we began leaning toward walking into town. That's what we did, and we walked a total of almost 4 miles for the day according to our pedometer readings.

The start of the celebration for us was breakfast, sponsored by the Jaycees of Jackson Hole. We were given one comp ticket at work and we paid $10 for a second ticket. The breakfast was being held in town between 7:30 and 10 AM. Our arrival was at around 9:15 which gave us plenty of time to eat before the start of the parade at 10:30. The breakfast was actually pretty good, although not worth $10. Here are a couple shots of the line and of Josie as she begins to eat her eggs, pancake, sausage, orange juice and coffee:

This year, we wanted to find a spot to watch the parade that was near the judges stand so we would see the performances by all the groups. It was rapidly filling up with chairs and we chose a location right behind the seats so we would be able to get good pictures. Here are shots of the growing crowd, looking east:

and then west:

There were buildings with second floor terraces that were also filling up with spectators:

and this one, where the announcers were keeping everyone informed about each of the parade entries:

The color guard came through and paused while we sang the National Anthem:

There were a total of 84 entries, or floats, and there were the usual collections of dogs:

horses:

including this small horse:

classic cars:

covered wagons:

and buses:

There were also lots of fire engines, rescue vehicles and the usual autos with the politicians and other local businesses. The one thing that was missing was marching bands. We guessed that maybe the schools weren't large enough or there weren't enough schools or there wasn't money in their budgets for instruments and uniforms.

The parade lasted for over an hour and we walked to the ice cream parlor on the town square and each had a cone while sitting in the park. We are always fascinated by the elk antler arches on each corner of the square that are very popular locations for photographs:

We were able to get a photo of another wildflower on our walk home that is common in town, called Goatsbeard:

These look much like dandelions, but are larger.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside and enjoying the beautiful weather until an isolated thunderstorm came through late in the afternoon. The fireworks began at 10 PM and we watched them through our rear window in the fifth wheel since we are only a couple blocks from the site where they were held. They were just OK, and only lasted for about 20 minutes.

It was a wonderful day and we were glad we walked to town to enjoy the festivities. It looks like another beautiful day today, but nothing is planned at this point. We'll let things develop as the day progresses...