FIreworks on the 4th

Happy Independence Day. Hope no one blew their hands off or lost hearing in a bottle rocket fight...

I participated in the first Independence Day parade in downtown Gatlinburg, which starts 1 minute after midnight. It was my 2nd year doing it, and had a lot of fun. But something happened before, during, or after the parade, where I apparently jumped from the float and landed wrong and now my right foot is bruised. So I've spent all of the 4th nursing a sore ankle. I didn't feel it at first. I walked the course of the parade with no issues. After the 90 minute drive home from Gatlinburg, I had trouble climbing out. I thought it was just stiffness, because both legs were hurting. Then when I woke up, it was all I could do to walk into the living room.

The fun really got going when I went to WalMart to look for shoes for my little one. I ended up doing a lot of (unnecessary) walking and was royally hurting when I got out. The family went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and on the way home I saw a really intense thunderstorm to the north. I got home and turned on the radio in time to have a severe thunderstorm warning blare across the weather radio.

Fortunately it was isolated, but intense. Nickel-sized hail and 70 mph winds were in the storm cell. But no one was really doing anything on the frequency so there was no net.

My new neighbors entertained the neighborhood with more fireworks than New York City, I think. We watched the sky light up with lightning to the north and fireworks to the south, west, north, and east.

So the fireworks came from my neighbors and mother nature.