Contributed by:
Fairlight Baer/YourHub.com
Article Contributed on: 7/5/2007 1:43:27 PM
You can read this blog under one condition: that you forget it by next Fourth of July.
I enjoyed an Independence Day that many only dream of. With the small town and small but jubilant crowd involved, I hope those dreamers keep dreamin' and don't go to Sedalia.
I learned of the Sedalia festivities through
YourHub.com user
Anthonette Klinkerman, who posted a
story about her experience last year. She had me at "giant water fight."
Holy garden hose, Batman, was it an experience! Among bandanna'd doggies, be-glittered children and hailing candy,
Bear,
Chenine and I got soaked like the locals.
One spectator couple shielded themselves with a large umbrella as a fight ensued.
"Somebody gave it to me. They felt sorry for us,"
Betty Devries, of Sedalia, told me.
Participants from toddler-age to 50-somethings unleashed in force their arsenal of water guns, garden hoses, galvanized steel buckets, trash cans and fire hoses.
Luckily, it was our first year, so we weren't targets like some of the folks in the crowd and on the floats were. They're likely still shaking water out of their ears.
Once the parade had made its way around twice and most of the people in it began to prune up, it ended and the locals briefly retreated to change into dry clothes. The three of us made our way to Sedalia Elementary School, where user
Carole Williams'
posting stated the rest of the evening's fun takes place.
This turned out to be the family zone, where Bear, Chenine and I were possibly the only childless adults on the field, but it made for wholesome-people watching and allowed me to sustain a heroic tetherball injury. The inside of my patriotic left index finger is morphing from blue to red as I type.
Later, with a Bear-prepared picnic, Boy Scout Troop 637's ice cream and local vets' corn on the cob and cookies in our tummies, we waited for the fireworks to begin.
One woman interviewed last month in a
CBS4 story about Sedalia's future called the town's show "the best fireworks in all of Colorado." Having seen Telluride fireworks, as I mentioned in a
previous blog, I found this to be a dubious claim but was hopeful.
Well, the votes are in, and Sedalia is a strong contender. Telluride may have the mountains, but have you ever seen a 45-minute fireworks show with eight trick finales?
No, you haven't. And since you will forget this blog by next year, you won't.
Happy Fifth, everyone.
Read about a tractor accident, in which a 6-year-old was injured and a man was held on suspicion of DUI, here. The parade was bigger than I thought, as I didn't see the accident or what followed.