Day 49 - 4th of July

Today was a fun day, but definitely not the 4th of July I have become accustomed too. I woke up early and drove downtown with some people from the SEARHC office to get a good spot for the Juneau parade. The weather was awful - 40 degrees, freezing cold rain, and a strong wind - but we all stood huddled together as the parade started.

The parade was pretty cool. It was a collection of flat bed trucks decorated by local politicians and organizations. Every float throws candy to the kids lining the parade route, and kids collect this candy in large pillowcases. It is like Halloween in July. It was interesting to see the mix of Tlingit culture and American culture during the parade. The parade then continued over to Douglas Island and ended at Sandy Beach where there was lots of food and fair type activities. We drove over to Sandy Beach and ate hot dogs (trying to make it seem like the 4th of July even though the weather was better suited for Thanksgiving) before eventually succumbing to the numbing rain.

I never pictured myself huddled under a blanket in my bed, drinking hot tea on the 4th of July. I think I can say with absolute certainty that I will be spending every future 4th in a location with a minimum temperature of 80 degrees.

After warming up and getting some rest, the group went out to dinner at a restaurant called The Hanger. It's right on the harbor and one side of the restaurant is a giant window where you can look out over Douglas Island and see the cruise ships passing by. After dinner, we all congregated at Dr. Hort's house to wait for the midnight fireworks show. We were all skeptical that the city was going to shoot off the fireworks since the weather did not appear to be any nicer than it was yesterday when everything was canceled.

However, come 12:01 AM on July 5th, we finally got our 4th of July fireworks show. Because Juneau is surrounded by mountains on all sides the "boom" from the fireworks echoed for minutes at a time, trapped in between the mountains. That's about it for the 4th. I have tomorrow off so I'll have to find a way to keep myself busy before going back to work on Tuesday.