4th of July Again!

I returned home yesterday after being "home", as I refer to the area where I grew up, for almost one week. It was a very fun 4th of July weekend. On Friday Justin and I went to Upper Cormorant Lake to his parents' lake cabin that they purchased recently (well, almost two years ago, but that is recent in cabin years, I guess). It was pretty hot out so it was a good place to be. I spent most of Saturday sitting in a lawn chair reading and looking at the water.

What a nice view! They have a huge stretch of beach. I got out of my chair to play with my nephew who had a new inflateable turtle. I pulled him around, cringing at the weeds under my feet that increased with depth (I have always been mildly uncomfortable with aquatic plants in lakes and rivers but just suck it up because I am also uncomfortable with people who whine about things like that and let it ruin the fun. I also overcame my issues to an extent after swimming in Golden Lake, the greenest lake in America, as a child). He kept "tricking" me by pointing off into the distance and saying "what's that?" and sliding off the turtle when I looked away. Sneaky, sneaky! This went on until he got bored with me and went to play with the neighbor girls.

That turtle was pretty sweet until it got a hole in it and only the middle chamber would hold air!

On Saturday evening we went to Hatton to attend the annual street dance, parade and demolition derby. This has always been a favorite weekend of mine, and I have enjoyed it more over the years since I have reached the age of majority and my relatives have started joining us for the weekend. It was still in the 90's with about 99% humidity when we arrived and the house I grew up in isn't air conditioned due to the age of the house. It is heated by a boiler and big, metal radiators so it is not possible to install central air without prohibitive cost as it is in some other old houses. It felt like a sauna in that place! It even got to my brother and sister and myself, and we are used to it!

We had a dance to get ready for, and we ladies were completely wilted! Getting "fixed up" was a huge drag because as bad as it felt downstairs, upstairs is usually much hotter. As you can see, Andrea and I went with the natural look and our hair was taking over the whole room. (Behind Andrea you can see a window air conditioner. . .we have two and one is in my brother's room because he is there during the summer. We chose our sunroom to cool and that is where everyone sat for most of the evening.)

Fortunately, while the dance was in progress, the "front" finally moved behind some violent weather in Minnesota and the house had cooled considerably by the time we went home to sleep.

The next morning we watched the parade in town. We sat across from the newly finished and opened swimming pool that I wrote about a few weeks ago!

It looks very good and inviting, I think! The sight makes me so happy! I love seeing kids in town riding their bikes or walking in that direction with their towels once again!

It is hard to see, but that plane is pulling a banner that says Happy 4th HMC. (HMC stands for Hatton Men's Club). The same pilot flew around above the derby later that afternoon and did some pretty crazy stunts!

This was a funny float! It is a bar on wheels.

Hopefully there weren't any fires in the area that morning because all of the fire trucks were in the parade!

YEAHHHH!

After the parade, we went home to eat lunch and get ready to go the the demolition derby. I've heard people speak of events like a demolition derby with distain, as something that is "red-neck" or "trashy". Well, I don't think of myself or my town that way (I think the swimming pool efforts prove that). The derby raises around $10,000 every year and the money all goes to community improvement and good causes involving youth. I can think of countless fundraisers that don't do nearly as much good or are anywhere close to as fun so I guess I don't think that is trashy either. However, it can be fun to embrace the stereotypes and my cousin brought a pack of cheap fake tatoos for us to wear!

We snuck up to a guest room to get inked! My aunt decided to highlight her bicep. I put some weird goth looking cat on my ankle.

Getting parked is pretty intense, and they don't let people park until 7 am on the 4th. Well, maybe HMC members might be allowed to sneak in early ;) We had two pickups and they ended up being "boys" and "girls".

"Boys"

"Girls"

In the photo above, the two black cars are stuck together! They couldn't get unstuck and had to remove themselves from the action before they even had a chance to hit anyone! They were not too happy about the decision, but they had another chance. There are 6 heats, then several "last chance" heats for any driver who can get their smashed up pile of crap to still run after losing their original heat, and the championship. There is a professional referee to keep things under control, and the fire department is on the premises. There are HMC members standing around the ring with fire extinguishers and flags to stop the action. Drivers can't hit each other on the drivers side. The concept of a demolition derby seems dangerous, but I have been watching it for about 15 years and have never seen an injury or a serious fire that wasn't contained in seconds.

That is my brother in law and my cousin trying to squeeze between the pickups! It was pretty tight!

This is my mom and myself with David, my brothers best friend from childhood. His family lived near us and he and his younger brother used to have sleeping bags at our house because they slept over so often. He was a distinguished member of the fire department and decided to really play it up! (This was after it was over, so he was off duty! Haha.)

Awww, reunited. . .

This is me and my dad after the derby having a quick happy hour cocktail.

We went home and hung out in the yard. Justin got down to business building the fire. My dad gathered logs, while he doused them in flamable liquid.

Soon the logs went up in flames!

What do you call this game? Monkey balls? Norwegian Golf? Indian Golf? Polish Golf? Any kind of ethic slur combined with golf? I call it Monkey Balls.

Jake loves coming to the farm and might have had the best weekend of his life. He loves being around alot of people who play with him.

Wallace had fun too, but was still his usually clingy self. As you can see, the heat got to him and he was swimming and rolling in dirt.

We did some fireworks when it got dark. I love sparklers. When we moved to ND when I was 7 I had never had a 4th of July where I didn't watch a professional fireworks display. I didn't know what we would do when I found out the town didn't have one. My mom told me we could buy our own, which seemed crazy. I had never even done a sparkler! That first night on the farm we children just stood there with our sparklers and my dad thought we didn't "get it" so he grabbed two sparklers and went running across the yard, flailing his arms around and making sparks fly. I was hilarious and I remember it with clarity.

It looks like my sparkler decided to quit early! Sad!

I have a "Fireworks" setting on my camera so I had to try it. It didn't work that great for the airborn fireworks, but this one looks OK. . .

We were all tired and wrapped up the weekend soon after the display ended. Swilling beer all day in the hot sun can lead to such a result, I have learned! Every room of our 6 bedroom house was full of people, and my cousin even slept in the hallway on a mattress. I think the house, if it had feelings, would be very happy on weekends like this! Old houses, with there many bedrooms, were built that way! Although, it seems that huge families in "the old days" didn't wake up having to piss really bad in the morning because one bathroom for five bedrooms (the other bedroom is downstairs, and the bathroom is attached to it) isn't the most enjoyable way to live. Ugh. Trying to use a bathroom this weekend was like trying to speak to a living person at the Wells Fargo Student Loan call center. For anyone who hasn't experience it, it takes forever.

Happy birthday America! Even with all the problems we have (the wretched mess of an oil spill, to name one) I still feel that the 4th is a day filled with optimism.