We decided to start Independence Day right, sharing the community breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage. It tasted … good, considering it had to be cooked earlier and kept as warm as possible outside. After that, we sat next to the street on folding chairs to watch the small-town parade. The horses were beautiful. The floats were mostly advertisements, but they threw candy to the children. We enjoyed watching the children scrambling to gather the candy into their bags. The little ones were cute.

After a rest and some card games with my family, we walked to the end of the street and watched the fireworks. Everything else was small town. Not the fireworks. They were great, flinging them into the sky in ones, twos, and sometimes sevens or eights, for nearly 20 minutes. We didn’t hear the “Ohs and Ahs” because we stood far away from where they shot them off. We didn’t need them to enjoy the display.

On the 6th, we climbed into the air conditioned car and drove to Zions National Park. We boarded the tram that takes visitors through the most popular part of the canyon, where private autos aren’t allowed. The tram was not air conditioned, and it was close to 105! As always, we still loved the rugged mountains, the clear streams, and the green trees. We drank all the water we brought with us, and still felt over-heated.

Even with the excessive heat, the views were amazing, as always. We decided to wait to go there again until … maybe October, or next March, when it’s cooler.

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And on another note, Finding Peace: Rebecca, Wife of Enos is available for your reading pleasure Friday, July 7—tomorrow. I think you will enjoy it!

What did you do to celebrate this summer?