Fireworks

Celebration on the Grand was this weekend and with it the Hispanic Festival and the local Native American Pow Wow. We pretty much stayed away from downtown this time around because there is so much damned road construction that it is near impossible to get there from here anymore when there is a traffic event. Instead, Mary and I dropped in at Bill's house which has a view of the downtown skyline from a high bluff at the end of his cul-de-sac. He had some friends over and was making pina coladas. They were delicious but I started thinking they were a little too delicious. Sure enough. He forgot to put in the rum. At 9:20pm, we suddenly heard the booming of fireworks. They were started early. We later intuited and much later confirmed that they were trying to beat this big rain cloud that was coming. They were not quick enough. It started pouring about halfway through. But it was not bad for us beneath a great big tree. here are some crappy photos from my camera phone.




Saturday we went for a bike ride to Riverside park. We stumbled on the Indian PowWow which seemed like an excellet destination for the trip. We locked up our bikes and checked out the craft and food vendors. We bought some stuff like blue lemonade and cheap jewelry and ran into all of our Native American Friends. One lady was selling fur items. Since I had neglected to bring vials of blood to throw at them, I decided to just see what they had. My favorite was a skunk that had been made into a handbag. It occurred to me that though fur is politically incorrect, in the Indian crowd it is a tradition. Hard to find fault with that. We stayed a bit longer to watch a hand drum/singing competition. Totally cool.
Last night we decided to watch Dream Girls on DVD. I guess you need to see it on the big screen because we were mostly bored.

Today we were going to go to Mary's sister Margaret's house in Grand Haven for a beach visit to make up for the lack of beach time at our last couple of beach trips. Turns out there is a cold water mass sitting there at Grand Haven. (click to enlarge)



Drat! foiled again.