Day-50 July 4th 2010 Happy Birthday USA!!!!!!
We decided to take bin the local 4th of July festivities. Deluth and Mandan are sister cities seperated by the river. If you remember your 5th grade geography. Deluth is the capital of North Dakota. So Mandan has the largest parade in the state, I am told. So we headed down and they have the classic cars go first at 11:30 am followed by the parade My guess is so the classic cars don't have to keep stopping for overheating reasons. The parade itself takes well over two hours to pass. The striking thing that you notice comming from New England is there is nothing about the birth of the nation. What do I mean you ask? No fife and drums, no muskets, no one in revalutionary uniforms. And why not? That all happened in the east, the high plains was the western expantion deal.
We watched for a while and headed to the "Art in the Park". Downtown we beat the begining of the parade. They have all the crafts booths and all the food including, of course, funnel cakes and two foot long corn dogs. Speaking of food we hit one of the picnic tables to eat and talk with people. The corner of the bench opened up across from us and Boyd sat down, he and his wife sell hand woven hammocks and swing chairs. He lives 6 hours east in Minasoder. He offered for us to stay in a camper at his house. I went to his booth later and told them is was there to redeam my ticket, I paid a guy $5 for a 15 min nap. They laughed, we pushed on, we decided to leave and the parade ended. Not good timing there was a lot of trafic.
We got back to our campsite and talked with the people across from us until about dinner time, dinner time? Time to go to the Rodeo. This is the 132nd 4th of July Rodeo. It startes at 7:30 and ends with fireworks at 11 pm. We ended up lucking out. The place was packed the bleachers were so full, people are standing up at the back and where ever they can. So were are we sitting? Front row. Karen is sitting next to one of the many sponsors for the Rodeo. We had a great time. So what went on? Bareback Bronco Riding, Tie Down Calf Roping, Miss Rodeo Mandan Queen & Princess Coronation, Chuckwagon Races, Saddle Bronco Riding, Steer Wrestling, Stunt Riders, Team Roping, Ladies Barrel Racing, Extreme Mini Motorcycle Barrel Racing, and Bull Riding, Then the Ranch Hand Rodeo. One interesting point Rock and Roll is playing not country music!
The Ranch Hand Rodeo is great, it is were the Rodeo Started. These are teams from real working Ranches. They have their every day working horses. They compete in a few events. One they have two four door pick up with a large horse trailer with their four horses in side. The horn goes off and the race is on. They have to jump out of the truck and unload the four horses and one will take off with a baton and race around the opposed truck and trailer and back to pass off the baton in the relay race. once the last cowboy gets back they have to load all four horses and run back to the truck and the time stops when all four doors are shut. There is also a few more events. What a great time!!
Now while all this is going on, fireworks are going off all around (Fireworks ARE legal.) They are just short of the professional stuff we are use too. It's going off everywere. They also set off a small hot air balloon with a candle. You look out across the sky and see more than fifty of these amber glowing floating across the sky. Then the real fireworks! They are set off right in the track, with music going on. You can see and hear each one being launched off, there isn't a delay from the flash to boom of the lunch. We had a great time. Traffic jam 2 ! We get back to camp the next day. Ya after 12am making it July 5th.
Starting Mileage: 110,134
Ending Mileage: 110,183
49 Miles for the day 11,085 for the trip so far
Location: Bismarck, ND
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