Celebrating 4th of July the American Way

In between the my wash of a day on the 3rd and my rainy departure day of the 5th, there was one glimmering day of sunshine - how poetic was it to have this day of sunshine on the 4th of July in Texas.

Except for a minor sprinkle of rain, the 4th of July was hot and sunny. Unfortunately for my cousin, he had to work on the holiday so it was just me, Cameron and Jose, the rental car, cavorting around Texas. In honour of the famed holiday, I spent the day celebrating it Texas-style. I went shopping.

Unlike us suckers up in Canada, Americans don't let bankers holidays and national days of importance get in the way of their constitutional right to shop (yes, I know it really isn't a part of their constitution but they way they go at it, it might as well be...). I initially went out exploring, thinking all the stores would be closed but they weren't. So I made a beeline for Target...and TJ Maxx...and Bath and Body works....*drool*...

Anyhow, after I got that out of my system, I got the typical 4th of July meal -a burger and fries from a place called Whataburger, whose logo reminds me of the Wonder Woman sign or the Weezer logo. Again, like the mutated egg roll, this burger was massive. I mean, "what a burger!" (get, it? Whataburger? hahaha...oooohhh....). The drink that came with the meal was massive too...looked less like a medium drink and more like an XL. I would come to regret that and many other drinks I consumed later that day...

Now no 4th of July is complete without fireworks. I searched around and found a place that was having a symphony orchestra concert in front of its city hall followed by fireworks. I loaded up on some bottle water, grabbed my travel reading book and headed over.

The place was already hopping by the time I got there. There was food available and families were already claiming spots for the concert and the fireworks. I grabbed myself of funnel cake and marked my territory a fair distance away from the concert stage.

I thought the bands prior to the orchestra were kinda cheesy so I spent most of the early evening reading my book - American Pastoral by Philip Roth. (It was sort of related to the holiday...sort of...it did involve a bomb going off....)

By the time the orchestra finally took the stage, my butt was sore from sitting on concrete and I was starting to feel the result of drinking a 1 litre of bottled water in one sitting. I waited that long for the orchestra to come on and I wasn't going to budge. Besides, the portalets looked suspect.

The orchestra was pretty good; the flutist and piccolos in particular warmed my heart...they made me think of band and all the fun things we did together that didn't actually involve paying attention in class. I was rather disappointed though that they didn't play Liberty Bell since that was my favorite march to play but you know, to each their own.

The fireworks freaked me out, I'm not going to lie. It's not like I've never seen fireworks before. It's just that I've never been THAT close to fireworks. Apparently someone in the town's committee thought it would be a good idea to allow the general public close to where they would launch them. It looked pretty but up close, it sounded like a war zone.

After a couple of minutes watching them go off, I decided to head back to the hotel and pee. I couldn't hold it any longer but I still wasn't going to use the portalet. I'm a stubborn little brat. Serves me right though - by the time I got to hotel, I had to pee so badly that I did the little dance in the lobby and my key to open the lobby door wouldn't work so I had to call the security guard to let me in and explained my situation. Oh was THAT good times...