Making the Turn

It's a shame we didn't have more time to celebrate Josie's birthday yesterday but we hope to make up for it during our three days off beginning today. Work always seems to get in the way of celebrating these occasions.

We will make the turn on another month tomorrow, but we have some things to get done yet in July. We will pick up my cross stitch at the Fair today and drop it off at our work location for a couple days. So many people have wanted to see it that we decided to place it in the office for viewing. I can't think of a better compliment for my effort. We will also have our (hopefully) final interview on the phone today with the store managers from the Grand Canyon Association. If that goes well, we hope to get an offer to work there this winter season.

Our neighbors here at the Elk Refuge have given us free passes for activities in the Teton Village that must be used today - before the end of July. One of the free activities is a ride on the Tram which we haven't done in several years and will try to do today. We hope to get some good pictures from our activities over the next couple days, so hang on...

Great News From the Fair

I was nervous all day yesterday at work as I could hardly wait to finish the work day so we could go to the Exhibit Hall at the County Fair. Yesterday was the opening of the exhibits to the public and all of the ribbons and awards have been made. Following work at 4:15, Josie and I drove directly to the Fair and walked into the Hall and to the section where the cross stitch and other needle handiwork was displayed. I was delighted to see the ribbon on my piece that was the top prize - Best in Show:

That is six years in a row now that my Native American cross stitch entries have won the Division, and the fourth year that they have walked away with the top prize of  "Best of Show". I can rest easy again for another year.

Our final work day of the week is today - yeah! - and it is also Josie's birthday. We will do something special although we haven't yet decided. Once the work day ends today, we begin our three day weekend...

Quick Turnaround Day

What can I say - today is the morning we open at the Visitor Center after closing last night. So, after a very short night, we get to do our once weekly quick turnaround. At 7:30 AM we will leave for work.

One thing that we will get done today is to pay a visit to the Exhibit Hall at the County Fair to check out the results of this year's judging. Maybe we can run down there at lunch time to check it out - or go immediately from work at 4:30 this afternoon. At any rate, this is always an exciting time when we check out all the results of what people have submitted for another year.

As is typical of the quick turnaround day, this will be a short entry. Have a great day everybody...

Eclipse Talk Heating Up

We are over three weeks away from the total eclipse that is taking place on Monday, August 21. You would think that it was happening next week with all the preparation and talk about procedures. Every day, there is more and more written in the local papers and more and more emails and memos about how things should work. The feeling I get is that we are all over preparing for a three minute event. Our area will be in the total eclipse shadow which is a narrow band that stretches across the entire country. The prediction is for at least an extra 100K people in town for the event. I'll keep you posted on all that is happening from our location.

Our staffing situation at the Visitor Center is in flux right now. I mentioned before that two of our employees will be leaving early before the end of the season. We are holding our breath for changes that may impact our schedule which is finally where we want it.

Day number two for our week is today and will be the same as yesterday. We ran into another computer glitch last night and I am nervous about the way our system is performing lately. It doesn't seem very stable since the problems we had two weeks ago and I'm sure there are more fixes that can and will be made before it gets back to normal. We are about halfway through our season and the efforts are heating up for planning our next move in October...

Day in Idaho Falls

As we both needed haircuts and the cheapest we could find in Jackson was around $50, we decided to take a trip to Idaho Falls. We each had a haircut and Josie added highlight's for much less at the SmartStyle shop in Walmart. We also included a stop at Sam's Club and at the Ford dealership to try to get an oil change in the Escape. That didn't work out as the wait would have been too long, so that will be done at a later time. It's not like we will be driving lots of miles any time soon. It is 5 miles, round-trip, to work each day and we have no current plans for any kind of long trip for awhile.

We caught this shot of Josie's Ridge in Jackson on the way home to remind us that we climbed to the top of this hill a few years ago:

It would be tough for us to repeat that hike today. Both of us are out of shape and Josie has leg problems that still need attention. Maybe someday we will do it again.

Today is "return to work" day. Sometime during the day we hope to connect with the folks at the Grand Canyon Association. They called yesterday while we were gone and the other managers there want to talk to us. We are still excited about that potential and hope to close the loop today. Along with that potential, Josie received a text from her manager at the flower shop asking about her plans for the winter. We will have to make some decisions soon...

Back Home in Jackson

On our way out of Riverton yesterday, we stopped at the McDonalds at the edge of town and picked up a couple Egg McMuffins to eat on the way. It was around 8 AM when we left, and we drove through cloudy, but dry weather the whole way. Our arrival back at the RV in Jackson was around 10:30 AM.

We took my cross stitch to the Exhibit Hall at the Teton County Fair shortly after 11 AM. I am entered for another year in the Fair and have my fingers crossed for the judging to produce a favorable outcome. We should know Saturday about the judging results when the Exhibit Hall opens to the public.

There are some changes occurring at work that we found out about in a text from our friend at work. Evidently, the two sisters that were hired - one about three weeks ago and the other this week - are both slated to leave the Visitor Center early, before the end of the season. It is amazing to us how our manager can hire two people knowing that they would have early departures. We are wondering how and who will be making up the time that they will be gone. One is leaving in mid August, and the other in mid September. We are not comfortable with the way the personnel situation is changing. However, we will not over-react, at least until after we return to work tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, we have one more day of our five day weekend to spend today. We  plan to drive to Idaho Falls to get haircuts and stop at Sam's Club for a few items. Our long period of off days is coming to an end too quickly...

Extended Stay Ends

I guess we could call our two days in Riverton a mini vacation. We are happy that we stayed the extra day and enjoyed a combination of casino play with driving around the area to learn more about this part of Wyoming. Our play in the casino resulted in our playing the entire time on the casino's money. We won enough to cover our initial stake and played for the two days on our winnings. It is too bad that a woman won a $3200 jackpot on a machine - two away from mine - that was the identical machine I was playing. It's all in the timing and being at the right place at the right time. It is always fun to spend the time playing the slots with the anticipation that one spin will someday result in a nice jackpot for us.

We took out almost one hour yesterday in the middle of the day to have our telephone interview with the Grand Canyon Association management. It was a very pleasant and, we believe, successful interview. We ended the conversation with the gentleman scheduling a follow-up conversation with his store manager later this week to get closure on a job offer. The only real concern we have at this point is the weather that we will be experiencing in the December-February time frame when it gets pretty darn cold at the Grand Canyon. We will need to talk to people that have experienced that time frame in the Grand Canyon Village where we would be staying.

Another nice chunk of our day was taken by a drive to another town - Lander, WY - that is not too far from Riverton and the home of a brother of one of our fellow workers at the Elk Refuge. It is a nice, small town (approximately 7400 residents) that is at a 6400 foot elevation. It is nice to see the variety of towns in this wonderful state.

We will leave here by 8 AM this morning for our drive home to Jackson where I will take my cross stitch to the County Fair Exhibit Hall for entry into the Fair this year...

Riverton, WY

We were in no hurry yesterday AM. It was around 10 AM by the time we left Jackson and headed for our day in Riverton, WY. It was a clear and warm day and we made several stops along the way to enjoy the scenery and to take in the area we have not seen for several years. Before we even got out of the Grand Teton National Park, we took these shots of wild horses that were along the side of the road in the area where we frequently see herds of Bison:

As we approached the town of Dubois, we drove over the Togwotee Pass and took these shots of the unique mountain formations:

As we drove the 160 miles to Riverton, we decided we would check to see if we could stay a second night when we arrived. There really wasn't any reason to go home after the one night except for our telephone interview that we have scheduled for noon today. Yes, we have a telephone interview to work - in the same capacity we currently work at the Grand Teton Association - for the Grand Canyon Association for the winter season this year. If all goes well with that interview, we will be starting at the Grand Canyon sometime around October 15 and work (hopefully) until April 15 of next year. More on that after we have the interview. We decided we could have the interview here without rushing to get home by noon. So, here we are for two nights.

The Hotel and Casino are very nice:

and we have a super room that we were able to get for only $30 for our second night (the first night was $70) as a special promotion:

We didn't start out too well at the slots after we got settled, but just before we quit to go beck to our room, I found a hot machine and won $260. That allows us to play today without using any more of our own cash. We will also take a drive around the area today and play some more on the slots to enjoy our third day of the five we have off this week...

Attempted Float Trip

Our plan for the day yesterday was to take a float trip down the Snake River. We called in the morning to see if there might be openings on one of the four trips the Outfitter had scheduled for the day. We were told that the 2:30 trip had openings and we should arrive at the departure point in town at 2 PM. Josie and I were there on time and were told that the two boats for the scheduled trip were filled. They indicated that there was room on the 4:30 dinner float trip but we passed on that. This is the chance you take when you try to go as a local ($10 fare) and cannot reserve a spot. The outfitter offers this to the locals in order to fill boats for these trips but you are always in a stand-by mode. We'll try it on another day - probably on a weekday when we would have a better chance.

We then went into town and did some shopping for our trip we have scheduled today - driving to Riverton, WY, where we will stay at the Wind River Hotel and Casino for one night tonight. It is a 160 mile drive through some beautiful country and we are looking forward to the trip.

On the way home from the grocery store, we took a different route so that we could stop at our mailbox in Moose. Wouldn't you know it, we saw this moose on the drive to the post office:

You never know when you will see these creatures.

We are off to Riverton and our first visit to a casino in a long, long time...

Time to Relax Now

Our tough week at the Visitor Center came to an end last night at 7:15 PM. We are now looking at five days of relaxation and don't return to work until 11 AM next Thursday the 27th. Hallelujah!

This is our view this morning from our RV as we kick off the next five days:

It is 38 degrees with clear skies and the promise of a high temperature of 82 today.

We called the Lewis and Clark Expeditions late yesterday to see if they had an opening for us to take a Float Trip through the Tetons on the Snake River today. They had a tentative opening for 2:45 this afternoon, but we decided to try and get a trip in the morning hours. So, we will try to get a trip for tomorrow AM. This year, we want to take our first float trip after going whitewater rafting for four of the years we have been here. The float trip lasts three hours and is a scenic float through the mountains.

Whatever else we end up doing on our five days off will be a welcome change from the last five days...

Tough Week

We have finally reached the last day of our work week. This has easily been the toughest week so far, with the computer problems and trying to catch up. We always get two deliveries of inventory each week (Tuesday and Thursday) and we have to systematically check-in each and every item. We haven't been able to keep up with that function with all the catchup required on the computer side. Now that we have the end of our week, it appears that we will be close to being current with the inventory by the end of today.

We are looking at some activities to schedule during our five days off beginning tomorrow. One important thing is to get lots of rest, but there are some things we would like to do. Starting with scheduling a Float Trip on the Snake River. We will try to do that sometime today. We can get a trip, if space is available, for $10 per person as employees of the Visitor Center. We will be checking into other similar deals over the next day or so.

The County Fair opens today, and I will take my cross stitch into the exhibit hall on Tuesday. It looks like a fun week ahead...

Back In Business

It was about 1 PM yesterday afternoon when we were notified that all the computer problems were "fixed" and we could again do business as usual. Except that we are still - and will be for some time - recreating parts of the system that were wiped clean. An example is that some screens required to check-in new inventory need to be recreated. Even though we are about 95% there, we still have some minor corrections and repairs to make. It is close enough that we can do business as usual.

We close again tonight and we are halfway through our work week. Saturday is getting close when we can begin our five day stretch of off-days. Plans are still in development, but we looking at some fun things to do such as a float trip down the Snake River which we have never done. Another is taking a horseback trip with a new outfitter that we haven't tried before. There are lots of things we can do that will be fun and not very expensive.

We are getting close to the County Fair again this year. I have to submit my cross stitch entry on Tuesday, the 25th. It's all ready to go and I am confident that it will keep my streak going. Fingers are crossed.

There is a telephone interview scheduled on Monday with a prospective employer for the winter season. I'll hold off identifying that opportunity until after that interview...

Computer Problems at Work

We had a surprise waiting for us when we arrived at work yesterday. The computer system that we use for the Visitor Center business was "fried" on late Sunday night by water that somehow got into the main processor. The staff spent the entire day on Monday handling the store business by performing manual transactions. The company IT Tech spent all of Monday and most of yesterday getting the system rebuilt and rebooted so that we could have the use of one register during the day yesterday. We are still without the use of one of our two system registers and that will have to be replaced entirely. I worked the entire day handling the one operational register while the rest of the staff entered the manual transactions into the system from the previous days' business. Josie handled the inventory stocking and other business during the day. We were both super tired at the end of the day.

It looks like a similar day in store for us today as the manual transactions are still not totally entered into the system and we will operate again with a single register. We are suppose to be off these two days - yesterday and today - but, as luck would have it, we are taking the place of one other staff member these two days while she goes to her sister's college graduation. We are really looking forward to our five days off starting this Saturday...

Rocks and Shane

Our only day off this week was spent doing a couple interesting activities. The first was something that we recently became attracted to, and that is hunting for unique rocks, including Geodes. We have seen some of these that were found locally, but we are still novices at identifying different rocks. This area is the one where the famous rock slide occurred in 1925 and there were rocks and boulders everywhere along this section of the river. Here's a shot of Josie, with hammer in hand, checking out one of the areas:

There were several rocks that we brought back to the RV to crack open to see if there was anything worthwhile. These had some crystals on the outside and we wanted to see if there was anything interesting on the inside of these stones. So far, we found nothing of interest.

We then stopped at what is known as the Pfeiffer Homestead which is located along the same road. It is a well known area for a couple reasons. One is that it is a popular location for wedding photography. The second is that it is the site where the movie Shane was filmed in 1953. It doesn't look much like a movie set now, but the movie is a great one for showing the Tetons and the Jackson Hole area. Here are the shots we took from there yesterday:

Today we start our new week which is four days - all of which we will spend closing. That means we start working at 11 AM and get home at around 7:30 each night. We had a text from our coworker last night which stated that the computers at work were down yesterday and they spent the entire day doing manual transactions. Can't wait to get to work and see the mess that we will be facing with entering all these manual transactions and getting the system up and running again. UGH!...

One Day Break Today

After finishing up our week last night, we have only the one day - today - before going back to work for four more days. But then, we get five days to enjoy some free time. There isn't much planned for today except to rest up for the rest of our work week.

Josie did laundry last night to free up the day today. There are some things we need to do around the RV and probably a trip to the post office in Moose to get our mail, but that will do it for the day. We will be doing some homework on winter working opportunities and also some weeding around our site. The weather has been terrific - 80's every day - and we have been getting occasional thunderstorms at night, but it is a fabulous time of the year in Jackson, WY...

Winter Options

We are beginning to see ads for the next season - beginning in October - for workampers in many different locations. There are a couple locations about which we are interested in getting more information that could determine our plans for the winter season. I won't disclose any of them yet until we find out more about these opportunities. Now is the time to plan and sort out the options and to make some plans for the Fall. We still have our reservations for the Pioneer RV Resort in Phoenix, but they can be changed - or even cancelled. We are looking for good opportunities that will allow us to search areas where we might want to spend more time. At most, we see another two years of traveling and working in nice areas. Stay tuned for more info on those.

We have our final day of the work week today before getting one day off on Monday. Then, our marathon schedule begins and we will work every day from Tuesday through Sunday of next week. But then - we will get five days off which is what we are shooting for the following week...

Weekly Flip

Last night and this morning represent our weekly "flip". We closed the Center last night and open it this morning. For some reason, it seems like this occasion comes more than once a week even though it doesn't. We only have an hour to get it together this morning so this will be a short post again.

This week we only get Monday off as we take the two day work schedule for one of our staff that is going to her sister's college graduation on Tuesday and Wednesday. It will be nice when next weekend rolls around as it starts our five day weekend to make up for our short weekend coming up. It should be our regular schedule again when we finish the exchange for these coming two weeks...

Escaping Wildfires

There are reported wildfires in 11 western states. So far, we have been lucky to escape the effects of these fires and our skies remain relatively clear from the haze. There are a couple fires burning in Idaho, but they seem to be farther west and not a problem for western Wyoming. In years past, we have had fires very close to us and the skies would get so hazy that we could barely see the mountains. Of course, there is lots of time left this season for those experiences to repeat themselves, but we are keeping our fingers crossed. Especially with the eclipse that we will be having on August 21. It would be terrible if we didn't have clear skies for that event. We don't have any control over that, so we just hope for the best.

Changes are slated at work among the staff. We will have the sister of our newest employee starting work on July 24 which is the first day following the final work day for the employee we all wanted to see leave. It will be interesting to see how these changes work out. It should be a positive change, and we are all looking forward to getting on with the rest of the season...

Walking the Town

The final day of our three day weekend was spent walking around downtown. There were areas that we hadn't been to yet this season and it was a good way to get some exercise while enjoying our final weekend day this week. Usually, we walk around the town square where all the action is:

but we went a couple blocks off the square this time. We stopped at a few stores that we hadn't visited yet this season and also stopped for lunch at Caldera Pizza for a forgettable lunch. We each had a beer and a dried piece of pizza that was probably sitting out for some time before being served to us. This is normally a great place to eat, but we ordered the wrong thing this time. This is also the place where the "Webcam" is located that we watched all winter long to get views of Jackson and the Town Square. If you view the link above, you can see the Webcam.

Our weekend ends today as we return to work at 11 AM. There is some news regarding the staffing issues and I will review them tomorrow after we get more info on the changes. One thing is for sure though, and that is that the girl we all want out of there has given her notice. We are anxious to find out more about that when we return today...

Back to Yellowstone

Our first trip to Yellowstone this season was yesterday. We pulled out at 7:45 in the AM and got home again at 6:30 PM. It was another wonderful day in our nation's first National Park.

We spotted a fair amount of wildlife and took lots of pictures, as usual. We also packed a picnic lunch and stopped in Lamar Valley for lunch at around 2 PM. That location was the same as we stopped previously and is at the furthest point that we traveled for the day. The one big surprise for us was the lack of large numbers of Bison which is a Yellowstone staple. We saw some, but all of them that we spotted in Yellowstone were loners and moving as singles. Below are some of the shots that we took on yesterday's trip.

Starting with the first sighting of elk as we arrived near the Fishing Bridge location:

The mystery to us was why all of the bison were traveling alone. We took several shots of these huge animals, all by themselves:

One of these was casually grazing in the field as we stopped for our lunch:

We made a stop at the Tower Falls and took this shot:

before stopping at our location for lunch:

One thing we always see - and yesterday was no exception - are lots of wildflowers. Here is one shot of some Lupins we saw on the side of the road in one location:

Another common sight in Yellowstone is the traffic jams that result from any wildlife encounter:

On our way out of the Park, and near the Canyons Location, we spotted this huge bull elk that was calmly grazing on the side of the road:

Finally, as we were entering the Grand Teton National Park on our drive home, we spotted the herd of Bison that we have been missing so far this season on every trip past our favorite location for these animals:

They were everywhere in the field and there must have been hundreds of them. It was nice to finally see them in the numbers that we have become accustomed to seeing them.

It was a terrific day and one that reminded us how blessed we are to be here at this time of the year.

Our third and final day off today is actually unplanned. There are several options that we are looking at, but no matter what we do, it is great to have this third day off on our new schedule...

A Good Find

We were at the office of the recommended Dentist by about 8:30 yesterday morning. The claim that they took emergencies and that walk-ins were welcome was right on! They were able to take Josie by 10 AM and they did a superb job repairing her chipped tooth. We were out of the office before noon. Not only that, the bill did not break the bank and we were happy to have the perfect fix done for $360. I will say though, this was the most expensive ear of corn we ever purchased. I thought that two ears for 88 cents at the grocery store was expensive, but $360 for this one ear of corn was kind of steep. Maybe we'll have it bronzed or something. It was a good lesson for us to be aware of items being tossed to us at parades.

Our schedule today is to take our planned trip to Yellowstone. We had planned to leave by 7 AM, but it looks like we might miss that departure by a little bit. Josie is packing our picnic lunch and we should be out of here before 7:30.

Here's hoping for a fun day at one of the great locations in the country...

Hiccup on Days Off

It's a shame that we have to spend our first day off this week looking for a dentist that can fix Josie's broken tooth. We had several suggestions for quick dental fixes by our associates at work yesterday and we will try one that has advertised "Walk-Ins Welcome" and "New Patients and Emergencies Welcome". If we are lucky, it will be done quickly and will be affordable. There are not many options when you have these situations.

Along with taking care of the tooth problem, we will need to get things together for our trip to Yellowstone tomorrow - if we are able to keep that trip on the schedule. Our plan is to take a picnic lunch so that we can stop at one of the many picnic areas in the Park during the day. I always enjoy the trips to Yellowstone and look forward to seeing the many unusual features of that unique park, including the wildlife.

This is our second three-day weekend and we are happy that the schedule now gives us the extra day to enjoy...

Parade Fallout

As is the case with many parades, our Fourth of July Parade in Jackson included "goodies" being tossed to the crowd by individuals on the floats. Each year, the Jackson parade has candy and other items that are tossed to the crowd - mostly for the kids and for advertising their businesses.

This year, one of the floats had ears of corn that were being tossed into the crowd. Josie was the beneficiary of one of those ears of corn. She, however, didn't make a clean "grab" of the corn and it smacked her on her upper lip as she wrestled it into her hands. She received a small, swollen, black and blue mark on her upper lip as a consequence of her catch. Worse than that, yesterday, a small chip broke off of her front tooth. It was evidently cracked by the "hit" and fell off while eating.

Now, we will have to get her to a dentist on our days off to get the tooth repaired. Hopefully, it can be repaired quickly and without breaking the bank. It's all in the "fun" (?!) of a parade, I guess.

We are enjoying the shorter work schedule so far. Today is our "Friday" and this week seemed to go a lot faster. We still plan on a visit to Yellowstone this week but it will depend on when Josie can get an appointment for her tooth. With luck, it can be done tomorrow...

Quick Turnaround

Our one day for the quick turnaround is today. We open this morning after closing last night, so there is very little time to do anything except get ready for work. Thank goodness it is only one time each week that we go through this kind of turnaround. Therefore, there is not much of anything to report.

There is no update yet on any staff changes but they are being worked as I write this. We are anxious to see the final lineup of our staff for the remainder of the summer season.

We are planning our three days off for the upcoming week and one day will include our first visit to Yellowstone for this season...

Switching Days

We agreed to a small change in our schedule yesterday. The new girl on staff - Karen - has a sister that is graduating from BYU next week and will attend those festivities as we agreed to work for her on two of her scheduled days which were off days for us. In return, she will work two of our scheduled days the following week. The end result is that we will work six straight days next week, but we will have five consecutive days off the following week. That is something we have never had and will have to figure something unique to do during that five day period.

There are other minor changes in store for the work staff - none of which will affect us - but we have to wait to see what develops. Right now, we are trying to solidify the staff for the long haul which means removing one of the low performing staff members. Stay tuned for that change. There will always be some drama at the workplace, right?

It is a nice feeling that we only have three more days to go this week. The new, shorter schedule appears to agree with us at this point...

Hike at Colter Bay

Our final off day this week was used to visit an area in the northern part of the Grand Teton National Park - Colter Bay. It is a beautiful part of the Park and one we love except for one negative aspect - the services - particularly Wi-Fi and Internet - are sparse and very intermittent. It is, however, a very nice area for outdoor activities including hiking trails.

The hike we took was not especially long - about 2 miles - and not especially difficult as Josie is nursing an aching leg and not able to handle more difficult hikes. It was a beautiful day and our hike produced some nice photos. Below are some of those.

Beginning with the Marina at the Colter Bay Visitor Center and at the start of the trail:

The entire trail was a loop that circled the peninsula where the Colter Bay facilities were located at the edge of Jackson Lake. These shots provide examples of the trail:

The trail runs mostly within view of Jackson Lake and there are many areas where you could walk off the trail to the edge of the lake. These are a couple examples of those areas:

The interesting thing about this area was the high number of folks actually swimming in the water which was very, very cold - like these:

There were also folks that were kayaking and paddling on boards:

There were wildflowers that were growing in the places where the sun was shining in the clearings:

It was a great way to spend our final day of our first three day weekend. We had a terrific Fourth of July and are looking forward to spending more quality time off over the next several months.

It's back to work again today at 11 AM. Ho, hum...

Fourth of July 2017

We had a busy day planned for the Fourth of July. Beginning with the Parade which was scheduled to begin at 10 AM, and ending with a party and the fireworks display scheduled for 10 PM last night.

It had been three years since we were able to go to the parade on the Fourth of July in Jackson. Much had not changed during that time, but some things did change. We took lots of photos during the day and you can see that we had a terrific time.

Starting with the parade photos, we have this scene at the time of our arrival at around 9:30 AM:

We opted to sit in the stands this year. You can see them on the other side of the street on the right in the photo. That was a great location to watch the parade as it was near the end of the procession and it also was the area where the judges stand was located.

It was fun watching the pre-parade festivities. There was a lot of entertainment from the crowd, including this photo of a darling little girl strutting her stuff:

and this plane that flew over the parade site:

We also caught this couple waiting for the parade to begin:

The parade started on time as the color guard came through and we sang the National Anthem:

 

As mentioned, there were some changes from the last time we attended the parade three years ago. The crowd control was very lax, and you can see from the photos below that the crowd kept getting closer and closer to the floats in the parade to the point where people were on top of the floats:

It was still a wonderful time and the weather was perfect.

We had some free time before getting together with our friends for a Barbecue prior to the fireworks. It was a great time and there was plenty of food for everybody. This is a shot of all of us sitting around and having conversation during the evening:

The fireworks started about 20 minutes late. We moved our chairs down to the spot where we could get a clear view of the fireworks and at 10:20, they started, and it was a very good show:

All in all, our Fourth of July was very special and we had a terrific time.

Our final day off this week is today, and we are planning some kind of hike. Josie's leg is feeling better today, so we will try to schedule something that isn't too strenuous, but still gets us out and about for the day...