Weird Quirks and Fireworks

Happy 4th of July! We had a wonderful, burn-free day and here is how it went down. It started with us heading to the little burg of Gilbert, South Carolina, to attend the Peach Festival Parade. It was definitely small town, America. Lots of friendly people, pick up trucks, and not even too many rebel flag sightings...except of course for the occasional tattoo or T-shirt here and there. The South Will Rise Again, you know. Anyway, here are the men preparing for the parade. Nothing says Happy Birthday, America like Red, White, Blue...and Green.

The parade kicked off with an old fire truck. A definite favorite with our fam.


Then some TRACTORS! Here is Mitch, screaming with glee: "Look! An 'L'!"

And here is the "L." And a cool Oliver.
Then, the funny and weird stuff started. Here are some photo highlights. First, this just made us laugh. His sign says, "Support the Small Farmers" and for some reason we found this very funny. Not his plight, just his sign.

Then, you will all be glad to know that the Woodmen of the World offer their full support to the Arm Forces, as opposed to the Armed Forces. This prompted my husband to proceed to flap his arms around for at least five minutes, pretending to hit people and generally crack himself up.Then, there was this totally odd pirate ship, filled with scary people from the local haunted house. Strange, very strange.

And the grande finale of weirdness was this. WHAT? Was he stolen from the zoo for the big day? Or does the church keep him out back for just such occasions? I am completely baffled. Maybe they are native to South Carolina. Not sure. I'll be on the lookout for indigenous camels as I drive around.

After the parade, we found where the tractors were all parked and had some great fun.

Our night involved fireworks, which we watched at the local shopping center. The show was fantastic, made all that much more exciting by the incredible lightning that was showing off concurrently with the fireworks. Mitch was glad to watch the show from inside the car, which was fine. Matty and Mike stood outside and enjoyed the show, with Matty trading in the usual ooohhh's and aaahhhh's for, "More" and "A Ball." Happy Birthday, America!