Chapter Fourteen — Happy Birthday America!

The Fourth of July is special to us, being the day we got married. It was always our favorite holiday. We both absolutely LOVE fireworks! We loved watching them on the lake, and were a little apprehensive if we’d ever find a display like that one.

Much to our surprise, the campground had a fireworks display! Luckily we had rain the day before, because everything here has been really dry. We were actually surprised at what a nice display it was! Not as good as the lake’s, but we’ll take it. Plus it was only July 2, so we were sure there’d be others in the area.

We heard Momence was having one on July 3, so we drove into town to see where it would be. We saw a lot of cars parked, and as we were driving around, a policeman stopped us and said, “the street ahead is closed. There’s been an accident.” He directed us to go through the alley, turn left, go down 2 streets and turn left to Washington St. He saw we had a handicap placard, and said “Go talk to the Officer in the silver squad car. He’ll direct you where to park.” So we did. That officer moved the barricade and told us to talk to Officer Jones (can’t remember his real name) and he’ll show you handicap parking. We were right in front! There was a bridge where the fireworks were going to be set off.

There was a small festival in the area. A few vendors with ice cream and drinks mostly, and a live band. They were really good. But we didn’t bring lawn chairs! Actually, at the time, we didn’t have lawn chairs, so when it was getting close to the time when the fireworks would start, we walked back to our car.

The fireworks were amazing! We opened the sunroof on the car to see the aerial ones better. They were HUGE! Of course, we were right under them. Then we discovered, opening the sunroof was not such a good idea. The dust and soot from the fireworks was falling into the car and on us!! I quickly closed the window part but left the shade open. Two old farts learn another lesson.

That show was truly amazing and we decided we’d always come back for this one!

But it was only July 3. Surely there had to be another one in the area. We heard Peotone was having one.

So on July 4, we headed out to Peotone. Hmm, we didn’t see any traffic or crowds near the high school, but we did find a police officer in a parking lot, so stopped to ask him. He said, “no Peotone wasn’t having one, but Beecher was.” Sweetie once lived in Beecher so was rather familiar with the area. So we headed to Beecher. Oh, yeah, they had a carnival going on too! We weren’t interested in that. Just the lights please. We drove around and asked a few people walking by where the fireworks would be and they pointed us to the direction. Parking was jammed, but we luckily found a spot and took it. It turned out to have a good view! Their display was pretty good too, but nothing like Momence.

Sweetie backed into the parking space, so when it was over, since we were already in our car, he just pulled right out and we got out of there before there was a traffic jam. We took Route 1, which Sweetie was familiar with. So I shut off the GPS (which turned out to be a bad idea.) We were driving down really dark country roads. We drove for quite awhile, and Sweetie says to me, “I don’t know where we are.” I said, “Don’t ask me! I didn’t know where we were when we started driving!” I suggested pulling off on a side street. There weren’t any! That took awhile, but Sweetie finally found a street. We didn’t know where we were or what kind of neighborhood we were in. But it looked like it had nice homes.

We didn’t know the address of the campground. Streets out here are marked “5000 North” or “12000 East” or my favorite…Route 45 (LaGrange Road/Mannheim) is 00000 Road!! If you're on GPS, it actually says zero zero zero zero zero road!

Anyway, we DID know the address of the bakery in town! LOL We figured if it could direct us to the bakery, we’d find the rest of the way home. That worked. Another Old Fart adventure!