Independence Day 2006. The log books have been shelved, HP is giving us a day off. Brian is not doing gainful work today either...a true holiday.
St. Mary's had a festival for the 4th with a parade, arts & crafts, live entertainment (country music and line dancing mostly, ugh), and BBQ. The parade route actually went through the middle of the booths and such...so we were just walking along looking at things and suddenly we were enveloped by a parade. Candy and beads being thrown past (at) us, and the entire morass flowed by. We crossed the road and had the distinct feeling of being a salmon going upstream as everyone from the far end of the parade route was moving into town...imagine a human glacier.
Food was expensive for the most part but we found some great BBQ - I think the guy knew we were pricing, felt sorry for us, and made us up a FAT sandwich.
The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off shortly after 2:30pm. On one of our moving trips to FL, the shuttle blew up on re-entry...so we hoped for better luck this time. We could see the smooth arc of the contrail when the shuttle lifted off, pretty spectacular for being in GA.
Went to Galago to see Tim, Adrian, and Jake for evening tea. Brian and Adrian had rooibos tea and Heather and Tim had hocks (rum and juice, in this case rum and white grape kool aid - it got rave reviews...Brian, the teetotaler enjoyed a sip or two) After that went to Jolly Tolly to see Ron and Angela to watch the fireworks.
OH..the fireworks. They set up the fireworks barge about 500' from us. JT was even closer. St. Mary's has the largest fireworks display in SE GA. It was spectacular. Never before have I had fireworks exploding almost right above my head. Amazing. With the landscape here being low marsh, we could also see the fireworks for Jacksonville, Fernandina, the Fernandina Ritz, etc. Could see half a dozen other displays also.
It was a very satisfying day punctuated by a nice nap complete with nice cool afternoon breeze.
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