Happy Independence Day !!!!

I hope you all hade a wonderful day. I love these holidays that are so uniquely American. I was invited to come to Chelmsford Center for the parade and then a cookout by the owner of Candlelite Quilts. 

Now, I did not realize that they would be closing all the roads leading into the Center by 9:00 am. So there I was, at 9:30 am, facing several barricades, orange cones and a couple of young police recruits. However I was able to sweet talk my way past these boundaries and was the last vehicle to creep through the crowd on the wrong side of the street in order to make my way into the back parking lot behind the store. 

The original plan had been to drape red, white and blue quilts borrowed from various friends and clients, along the front fence and the overhand above the front door. However we had rather strong showers pass through in the morning that soaked everything. Even though the rain had stopped and I along with two other quilters had no problem with our quilts potentially getting a bit damp - the owner was not sure about putting them out. She did have a point, if we only displayed a few and not all - there were going to have people who questioned why THEIR quilt was not shown. So - we just displayed the one the owner had made with photo transfer images of local service men and women.

Lisa (L) manager and Cathy (R) Owner of Candlelite Quilts

 

The town puts on a rather large parade that is a real old-fashioned American Small-Town type affair. We had the police cars, a group of local veterans from the current wars, Vietnam, VFW members, antique fire trucks, local Boy Scout troops, the High School Marching Band, a group of local political candidates and town officials.

We also had a real Army tank - and this thing would pause occasionally to shoot blanks skywards - and there was a tape of what the automatic mounted guns would sound like ... MAN those things are LOUD !!!!

By contrast for technology, though they came close in noise level, were the historic re-enactors who fired off their muskets along the route.

After the parade our group spread out in the shade along the side of the building next to the quilt shop, ate burgers, talked, played a lawn game, listened to Country music and ate some more. It was hot and muggy and no one really wanted to be in the full sun - even though most of the time there were clouds drifting in front of the sun.

However those period of overcast sun was not enough cover for me it seems. I only spent a total of about an hour in the sun watching the parade, and had taken off my outer shirt because I was sweating like crazy. THIS is why I don't sunbathe ..... 

(Sorry for the weird orientation ... because I took it with my iPOD I wasn't able to get it to rotate when I imported it here) .

LOOK at that upper arm ... OUCH ... the other one looks about as bad.