First July 4th

 I have been here for a couple Fourth of Julys...but I have never actually done the whole shebang. This year a friend and co-worker from Old Town School of Folk Music kindly invited me to her brothers cook out and party. "Cook out" is a term in Chicago for Barbeque. We drove across the border to Indianna where her brother lives early in the morning with our bikes tied to the fender bike rack.

 As soon as we got to her brothers house around 9 a.m. we poured lemonade vodkas and set up our bikes for later and looked at the street where the parade was building a crowd. Her brother had already set up a cabana on the sidewalk intersection so we would have some shade. Chairs coolers of beer were under that cabana. Relatives and friends started arriving. The parade began around 10. It was a very good parade rivally my favourite parades... The Metro Toronto Labour Day Parade and Toronto Gay Pride Parades. Otherwise I actually am not a parade person at all.

 After the parade we had all kinds of food. the small town her brother lives in provides families with picnic tables! They drop them off for any family that requests a picnic table and they pick them up after the weekend. Isn't that amazing? Her brother had requested 3 picnic tables. We had fried chicken, baked Hungarian chicken, meat balls, taco salad, regular salad, and broken glass jello. And coolers of beer were scattered around the yard.

After a huge lunch my friend and I got on our bikes and toured the small town eventually riding to the lake and it was a boiling hot day so we walked into the lake to cool down. Tons of people enjoying picnics along the beach.

 Krazy Kaplans is a big fireworks company in Indianna. Fireworks are illegal in Chicago...so everyone drives to these outlets right on the border about half an hour from downtown Chicago on July 4th. The line ups are insane. We went to the store about 5 and the line up took over all the aisles of the store winding around and around. You basically shopped while in the line up.

 Look closely above at the photo...isn't that a funny name for a firework? The packaging and names of fireworks is amazing. Thousands of styles from Dr. Suess to Porny kinds of titles. They are really quite beautiful and I loved the store. A little known fact...the owner of this fireworks company "Krazy Kaplas" went to an art show Stagg was in in Indiana and bought one of his paintings a few years ago.

 We spent the day visiting and riding bikes and eating and we also went to the Casino for an hour. I love the look of the Dean Martin Slot Machine game...Stagg and I have played it a few times in Vegas and in Indiana, but we always strike out. It has the best art work and crazy music...but we just don't have luck with it.

We also went to another family cook out that day...and met some fun family. One of which organized all the fireworks which were presented at the fire department grounds in a parking lot. They are in competitipn with the neighbouring town. It was a crazy show both frightening and hilarious as the fireworks would sometimes tip over and shoot straight at us the audience...straming along the floor of the parking lot. Hundreds of fireworks. We asked..."How many peopel are setting these things of?" the answer? "Go to the grocery store tomorrow and count all the stock guys"

I've never published video I had posted and dragged from Facebook before...lets see if they worrk...otherwise I'll have to upload them later and replace these one...

Videos of the parade...