Trent's house in Belle Fourche

Happy belated 4th of July to you all!

I don't know about you guys but we had an absolute perfect 4th this year!

We ended up in Belle Fourche for a (partial) family reunion of the Kenagy (his mother's) side of James family.

His mother's sister Nancy's children are scattered over several states, but accidentally two of them (Tammy and Vicky) were visiting the other two (Trent and Troy) for a short summer vacation, which happened to include this 4th of July celebration.

Since Vicky knew through Facebook we were only 45 minutes from Trent, she invited us over for the parade and a picnic afterwards at Trent's home in Belle Fourche (are you still with me?).

 

It was a gorgeous summer morning, and it looked like it was going to be a hot one, when we set of for 'Belle' , as the locals call her, where we arrived just in time to walk down the couple of blocks of the hill from Trent's house, to set up our chairs for the parade.
After standing in the, already blazing, sun for half an hour, James remembered having an Eazy-Up gazebo/tent in the truck and went back to get it. 

It's aptly named 'Eazy-Up' because it literally sets up in minutes!

Much, much better! We were the envy of the street!

The parade started at 10.30 ....

Of course there were lot's of (marching) bands:

...... and a whole lot of horses and carriages and pretty girls ....

... but I think these were the cutest ...

Rural and historical America showcased it's tractors and old cars:

..... and ..... is that a monkey ????!!

The kids went wild with all the candy that was thrown by all floats and cars and whatever else ...

Some even went as far as robbing others of their stash.....

.... with a water pistol!

 There were clowns:

...and .... what the .... ???

And many, many floats. Quite a few held class reunions ....

Throughout the whole parade there were many entrees of which the participants carried water in some kind of way; water pistols, hoses, canons, buckets and whatever they could come up with .....

Because of the extremely hot weather, everybody just loved to get sprayed on ....

All in all, it was a parade that can go down in the books! Nothing what I expected from such a small town. Wow, what a blast!

Afterwards we all walked back to Trent's beautiful house for a wonderful picnic in their yard!

As you can see, the tent came in handy here as well!

Ann, Trent's wife, had prepared most of the food beforehand, it just needed a little finishing touches ....

James and Ann's dad couldn't wait for desert to be served ....

Soon, everybody was eating up a storm! It could have been a Hess reunion! ;-)

Stories were told from times long ago, when everybody was about 30 years younger! 
(I guess: 'long time no see' was an understatement!)

       

I don't know who had more fun, the kids or us!?



When everybody was sufficiently stuffed and we were running out of memories we said our goodbyes and promised to visited whenever we'd be 'in the neighborhood' ... we'll see how that goes ...

After hitting Walmart in Spearfish, to once again 'stock up the pantry', we got home around 5pm.
The day was not at an end yet though, since we headed out again around 7.30, for the 4th of July evening fireworks in Lead, our 'home-for-now' town.

Lead is an old gold-mining town and still has some mining going on, in what is called 'the open pit', smack in the middle of town.
They're rebuilding the visitor center next to it, and we will hopefully get a chance to go and visit by the end of the summer.

But this night the pit was the scene of the fireworks, it being an ideal place to set of fireworks without anything catching fire ...

We found ourselves a good spot up above the mine's hole, albeit behind a chain link fence ....

We had no clue where the fireworks were set up but in hind-side it turned out to be on the very top of the left hill in this picture ...

           See? If you squint real hard, you'll see the 'launching tubes' pointing up ...

It was a long wait (why do fireworks never start on time?) but it was worth it because it was pretty grand! For a small town it was a rather good show, better than we expected!

Again, happy Fourth!