We got caught in the Fourth of July parade ...

... through downtown North Wilkesboro. Carmen and I had gone over to the Liberty Theater to watch "Ratatouille." It is Pixar's latest animated feature and was a lot of fun with some beautiful animation. We came out just before the parade started down Main Street so we walked down to the Key City Grill for dinner - but it was closed. As we walked back to the car the parade was upon us. It was billed as the Emergency Vehicle Parade and that is exactly what it was: 93 vehicles all with their sirens, klaxons, bells and whistles going off at maximum volume, stretching for a mile and a half.

The vehicles were from places like Cricket, Traphill, Wilbar, Boomer, Little Brushy Mountains, , and McGrady. Some came from as far as Blowing Rock and Glendale Springs. There were also several huge army trucks trundling along on tires about the size of my front door.

When we could hear each other again we drove over to Ruby Tuesdays where we had a great, though distant, view of the fireworks while we ate dinner.