Half way through....

Half way through...

We are about half way through the month. I missed a few blog posts that I promised myself that I would write but just didnt have the energy to do them. I should write about the second part of the 4th of July. So I will get right to that. As you already know, my family is strange. Strangely fun though. Never a dull moment. And you all wonder where I get it from.

After the parade, we all went back to the campsite to have lunch. Now there are several places in the area that are scheduled to have fireworks for tonight. The big ones that we prefer to go to dont though. Not sure if this is a blessing or not. The one resort only holds them on Thursday nights and the main 4th of July display that we like to go to isnt having them until next week. Good thing for that because once we got settled to sit down to eat, the sky opened up and it was suddenly monsoon season. It was coming down in buckets with no sign of stopping.

This brought a damper to a little girls plans. She wanted to see fireworks. If we had taken her to see them that night, it would have been down in town at a field that is a pain in the ass to park near. The last time we went to this particular one, we had to park along the road about a mile away. Walking this road with lawnchairs, an infant, a dog and two people that couldnt walk this far, was a joy. Enter sarcasim here. The fireworks were not all that great either. I really wasnt looking forward to that again. So I explained to her that we would wait until next weekend and go to the Friar Tuck to see the good ones. She finally gave in. I think it was only because she really didnt want to hear me bitch anymore about the rain. What fun would it be to do all that walking and sit in a field while getting wet and feeding all the blood suckers flying around?

So Mouse, being the generous and caring man that he is, will do anything for Cami. So he goes out to his shed and brings out some fireworks that he "aquired" while on the trip back up to NY from FL. Ok, so he stopped in SC and bought them. But they are illegal in NY so they have to be something that he wont get caught with. Nothing that makes a big boom or alot of flash. Read: Sparklers and some glitter fountains.

She took one look at the giant sparklers and her eyes got really huge. I swear this girl is a pyro in disguise. These things were almost as tall as she is. So the rain let up a little bit and they stood under the trees near the fire pit and lit a couple of these suckers up. I wish I had the photos off of my moms camera for visuals. Its very hard to describe the excitement of the lighting of the fireworks. This goes for Cami too. Yeah, Mouse was the biggest kid of them all.

So he lit one of the fountains on the top of the fire pit. Mind you that this wall is about 4 feet tall. It shot out sparkles and alot of smoke. Due to the heavy moisture in the air, the smoke hung low and ventured up the road. I know none of the campers on our road would care but the camp ground owner would. Hes a class A prick about every least little thing. I will get into that on a seperate blog someday.

So anywho, we all liked this private little display. Mouse was having alot of fun showing off to Cami. So he grabs a spinning wheel thingy and nails it to a tree. Its small and nothing that will shoot fireballs out. Cami loved it and noticed that he had alot more of those in the box. But she wanted another one of those fountains.

The next one he pulls out of the box is a fountain that is a little bigger than the first one. Being that the first one was pretty, he decided to stand near by and light some sparklers with it while its going off. So he propped it up in the firepit and lit it. The silver fountain of sparks came out. Ooooohhhhh.... Then the gold fountain came up. Oooooohhhhhh.... Then a mix of silver fountain with gold sparklers came up. He was about to walk up to it to light one of the hand held little sparklers when then fountain decided to set off a series of pops and booms. This was completely unexpected. Little did we know that it was supposed to do this.

So here is poor Mouse, up close to it and the booms hit. He grabs at his chest and jumps back with the look of shock and fear on his face. If I had a video camera, we would have one the big prize. It was one of those Fred Sanford moments. I jumped up and ran in the house because I nearly peed in my pants. I dont think I have ever laughed so hard in my life. I may have but this was funny as hell. The smoke was clogging the street and I was sure we were going to get caught. Poor Mouse had to sit down because he was now laughing himself. Damn I need those pictures. Of course, the littlest pyro is enjoying every second of this show.

So then he decides to look at the now empty fountain case and read the label. Sure enough, it said the word boom on it. Also there was a little stablizer that was supposed to be on the bottom of it. He took it off because he had no idea what the "little platform of cardboard" was for. Yeah, and we are trusting this man to set these off.

Once the smoke cleared and no one showed up to investigate the noise, he decides to set off a bigger wheel. So he nails it to the tree. But first he asked my mom which side goes against the tree. She said it didnt matter, so he just started hammering away. He lit it off and well, it didnt spin. Ummm mom, it does matter because he nailed the wrong side to it. So while its going off, he was going to see if he could get it to spin. Good gawd. We had to stop him from touching it.

Cami wanted to light more of the big sparklers. She liked those the best because she can hold them in her hand. Mind you that they are quite long and burn for about 15 minutes. She got tired of holding it so Mouse took it from her and stuck it in one of the hanging flower baskets. After a few moments, the basket decide to collapse on one side. The sparks melted one of the plastic rods that connected to the hanger part. So now the sparkler is facing sideways. Seems that every year at this time, we destroy something of moms. Last year we melted the windchimes that hung from the trees near the fire pit.

But all in all, it was alot of fun. Good thing I peed before because now he is back up on the deck with some pretty good sized tubes of something. We made sure that it didnt make any booms. He lit it off but I dont think he realized where he was holding it from. Im sure that I dont have to describe this little display. It said on the package to hold away from your body but in front of you. It wasnt something that shot balls out of but just a fountain of sparks. When I get the pictures, I will have to post that one because it was just too damn funny. Now he is known as the perverted pyro.

It started to rain again and the sun was just starting to go down. I think its about time to head home. We would be back down the following weekend for the real fireworks.

Lets jump ahead a week now. Its now Saturday and we showed up at the camp early to spend the day. Not too much happening but visits from friends and family and we had a nice BBQ. About 8, we packed up the lawnchairs and drinks and headed to the Friar Tuck for the fireworks. Usually they do these about 9pm so we wanted to get a good parking spot. For those that read my post about this place last year, we were parked in front of a small pond where some idiot decided his blazer would drive across it. This year we parked just across the gravel road from that spot. No one went in the pond this year though. No preshow entertainment.

We get the two vehicles parked side by side. Not many people are there yet. There is still some daylight left. But you need to get there early. So we have all the lawnchairs propped up in front of the truck tailgate and watched the people walking by. That was entertaining enough. There were some really strange people. Not that we arent strange, but these were worse. And most of them drunk.

So we get all settled in and my mom decides that she has to pee. There is no bathrooms out here and the walk to the resort main building is quite a distance away. She wouldnt make it so decided to pee between the two vehicles. Leave it to my mom to pull this one off. She opened the two doors to the Element and just simply squatted. She didnt care. Not like she would ever see these people again. I couldnt stop laughing but then discovered that now I too have to go. But Im holding mine. The fireworks will happen soon and then I can head home.

Well, I was wrong. We waited and waited and waited. My mom is watching the stars come out as it got darker and darker. She was commenting on how one was moving like a UFO but the rest of us thought she was cuckoo. About 10:15 they started the fireworks. An hour and 15 minutes late. By now my bladder was about to explode but now there are thousands of people around. No chance of me just squatting between the vehicles.

The display was awesome as usual and Cami was happy that she waited a week. Now its time to go home. Im exhausted and I had to pee so bad that my jaw hurt. I dont know the reason for this. Just felt that way. I was damn near swimming. Good thing that about half way home there was a shop open that we could stop at.

All in all I think it was a pretty decent 4th of July.