Day 31: The 4th of July and the Grand Marshall

It's the most American day of the year! It's parades! It's beer! It's blowing shit up while wearing bald eagle tank tops! Who doesn't love the 4th of July?!

We started the festivities of the day in Kenwood, a town just outside of Santa Rosa that was heavily affected by the wildfires last October. They were having a 4th of July parade, and Brad was heading it with the honor guard. And who doesn't love a good 4th of July parade?

The funny thing was, no one in town seemed to care as much about the parade as they did our little chunky hunk of a puppy. After all though, who could resist a 2 month old chocolate lab with a bow tie?? He probably met 300 humans squealing and oozing over his cute fluffiness. He was so popular, in fact, that even once the parade was starting, people were still stopping at us to meet Rebel. 

Rebel should have been the grand marshall of the parade. 

Actually, it was great socialization for him. He was exposed to new people, dogs, loud antique cars, bands and being completely and totally touched out. It was good for him. 

The best part of it was that Calen had his treat pouch on him, and even though the parade was marching by, if Calen happened to say "Look" (Rebel's command to sit and....well...LOOK), Rebel would stop, sit and look at Calen, continuously, ignoring the sounds and the horns and music, until Calen would remember to give him a treat...sometimes 3 or 4 minutes later. 

He's going to be a good doggo. 

Later that afternoon, we barbecued with friends in the backyard, and then packed up as many explosives as we could find and headed out to Petaluma to a big shopping center's parking lot that faces the Petaluma Speedway, where they shoot off a big fireworks show every year. We set up a card table and chairs and even pulled the 3rd row bench out of the Yukon to make a sofa out of it and made camp for a few hours until it got dark. We played card games, football and made paper airplanes, until the big show started and the kids all climbed on top of the Yukon to watch. 

Poppers coming at me!

Our annual "watch the fireworks show from the top of the SUV" tradition

After the big fireworks show, it's time for our own show. After all, 70 thousand cars are trying to leave that parking lot at the same time, so we could either a) sit in our car and wait in line for two hours, or b) stay where we were and blow shit up. 

And who doesn't want to blow shit up. 

So we set off sparklers and fountains and big sparkly popping stuff and had a great old redneck time sitting on our car sofa watching Brad light fireworks and run away. And by the time we were done blowing ours up, the parking lot was empty and we could just cruise home. 

What a great holiday. 

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