Happy 4th July !!!

I love the 4th here. My community celebrates it in a number of ways......picnics, parties, home fireworks, town parade, rodeo, kids inflatable play park, senior bingo, food booths and Saturday farmers market. Lots of home gatherings with music and food. Plus many folks spend the weekend camped down at the beach. All in all, a nice way to spend a holiday.

For the past ten years the town has hosted a parade. Yeah, it's hokey but I love it. And I see that lots of us around here love it too. Over the years it's grown from being a line up of the town tow truck, ambulance, park maintenance crew, and local hauling/dump truck to something that passes as a gosh darn for-real parade. Here's a few pictures of this year's parade........groan if you want but there was clapping, cheering, and approving whistles from the spectators (I'd guess 300-400 people lined the street). Perhaps more because I'm lousy at estimating a crowd.) 

One small section of the spectators, wisely positioned close to the coffee truck. 

Yes, the ONLY road through town shuts down to all traffic. Nobody gets through, locals and tourists alike. We take our parade seriously! 

This year's parade was lead by the rangers from Volcanoes National Park. 

 Our town fire truck. Aahh, tradition. The yellow came from the next town 20 minutes away. 

Bagpiper? Sure, why not. Hey, he was good! 

And if a bagpiper can participate, why not a group of Trojans? Sounds good to me. 

This train comes to all the parades. The kids are fascinated with it. 

The town tow truck never fails to attend, wrecked car and all. Many of us know who owned the wreck. It's a small town, afterall. 

Our own homegrown American Idol contestant performed on the "float". Hey, he sings pretty good. I wish him the best of luck.  

Volunteer firefighters handed out goodies to the children along the parade route. 

Several pa'u riders attended again this year. Everybody cheers them and takes lots of photos. 

Of course we also saw our Ka'u coffee queen and peaberry princess, several local church groups, the girl scouts, several vintage and specialty cars, motorcycles, lots of horses and dogs, the local library group, several of the community interest and help groups, several politicians (of course), .....didn't I say that our parade has grown? Yes, it's the real deal now. 

Staying with our own tradition, we spent the afternoon with friends, skipping the rodeo on the 4th. But Sunday was the second half of the rodeo, which we caught. Lots of fun going on. And lots of good people, beautiful horses, savvy steers.

And one pissed off goat who has to endure little kids (from two years of age and up. Yes, kids start out young in rodeo here) running up behind him to grab the ribbon tied to his tail....called undressing the goat. But this year's goat was rather patient. Perhaps he's been this year's practice goat and has seen this silly stuff before. Last year's goat played catch-me-if-you-can. 

The fun event was the girl-guy team mugging. One rider on horseback ropes a steer, then the other person on foot runs up and grabs said steer to stop it from running. Sounds easy. Then horse rider jumps off horse, runs to steer, removes ribbon from its tail. Rope is then removed from the steer, both people join hands and run back to a barrel in the middle of the arena, bringing the rope and ribbon with them. Simple. Ha. Ready to give it a go? Let's see.....everybody today successfully roped the steer, but some couldn't run up and hand capture the critter and hold it still enough for the partner to help. Dragged through the dirt. Stomped on by the steer. Kicked. Flipped. Stomped on my their partner. Tripped over by their partner....repeatedly! Tangled in the rope. Some got the ribbon but couldn't get the rope off before the steer ran off. Some got dragged right across the arena before finally giving up and letting go of the rope. Steer won. Their clothes would have been great for a laundry soap commercial, ya know, the grounded in dirt ad. These poor people got really, really dirty! And I bet they will be sore tomorrow. And those steers were real savvy, they knew exactly what was going on. As soon as the puny humans gave up, the steers casually trotted in a straight line to the exit gait and calmly waited for it to open before calmly leaving the arena. Some gave playful hops and twisting leaps.