Yesterday, Emily and I went to the 4th of July celebration on post. It was one HOT, crazy day! I was able to reserve a spot ahead of time by paying $25 for a 10×10 foot space with a canopy tent already set up for me. SO glad I did – totally worth it! If Hubby had been here, I could have paid the $10 for a spot and set up our own tent, but I didn’t want to mess with that myself! We had a great spot! We had a front row seat to see the paratroopers free-fall demonstration – always cool! I even got to share it with some good friends and it was so nice having the company!
It was crazy hot though!! Next year I will show up a little later, and with more ICE 🙂 We took tons of water and food though, so we were good, but I wasn’t thinking clearly and forgot a couple things that would have been a HUGE help. Hubby’s Camelbak, and our large thermos that I could have filled with ice. Oh well. Thankfully they had a large water tank there filled with ice cold water that was available for FREE, so we filled our water bottles many times.
The kids area was NUTS! $7 for “all you can play” got us 3 bounce houses. There were many more to choose from, but it was too hot (earlier in the day), or the lines were insanely long (later in the day). Good thing Emily was happy with 3, and I consider it $7 well spent for her enjoyment.
Charlie Daniels was one of the performers, and being from Texas, I was so excited to hear him! Hubby and I both love his music and I was so sad that he wasn’t here to enjoy it with me. As for the actual performance, we didn’t get to see too much, but we did enjoy listening to it. Since our spot were no where near close enough to see the music stage, we walked over there for a bit to see about getting a couple pictures for Hubby. We couldn’t get close enough to really see, and it was right in the SUN! After a couple songs, we went back to our shade and listened to the rest of it from there! That was good enough for me and I enjoyed hearing it live. Had we been in the FRONT, it would have been awesome – I love Charlie Daniels and he plays a mean fiddle! But, being in the back of the crowd wasn’t so exciting. Gotta take your pick – reserve your spot with a canopy on one part of the field, see the parachute show and flag ceremony up close, or stake out a spot in front of the music stage. Depends on your preference. I was happy with our chosen spot.
Around 8:20 PM, just as they were posting the state flags, it started lightening and the sky turned super dark with rain clouds. Lots of people started leaving. We decided to hang on until the flags were done….until the winds went nuts and it started raining! So, then we headed toward the car. As we were walking, in the rain, we heard the lady start to sing the National Anthem. So, what do Emily and I do? We stop in the rain, place our hands over our hearts and listen to it. I figure if she can keep singing, we can wait 2 minutes. I loved that both Emily and I stopped at the same time, and she turned around to tell me to put my hand over my heart just as I was doing it. I didn’t even have to ask her to stop and show that respect. Hubby would be so proud!
After that, as we continued walking toward the car in the rain, all of a sudden the rain stopped raining hard and was just barely coming down. Suddenly we hear this BOOM and look up to see that we now have a PERFECT, front row “seat” to the fireworks show!! It was awesome! We stood there on the side of the road, looking right over the trees and watched the show. Then, we finished walking to the car, and because of our careful planning on where we parked, we made it home in 20 minutes! I was thrilled with that since I had heard stories of being stuck in traffic for over an hour to get home, even on post.
All in all, it was a great day! I asked Emily if she thought it was worth going, and she said “definitely!”, so I’m sure we’ll go again and I can’t wait to go celebrate with my Hubby next time!