Ginny Zeller, me, Elizabeth
The boys and Miriam were not happy to be awake
After the fun run, we headed to the fire station for a pancake breakfast. When we were waiting in line, the person behind us asked who we were. We explained that we were Dicksons visiting Zellers. She told me she knew Dicksons and she knew Zellers. (Gene Zeller is Dode's dad's cousin) It's fun to be in the town where Dode's family has deep roots. Lovell is a town of about 3,000 people and it feels like everyone knows everyone else.
Once we finished up breakfast, we headed back to the Zellers for an hour until it was time for the parade. The Zellers live just a few blocks from Main Street so it didn't take much time to travel between the fun things we were doing. The most exciting thing at the parade for the kids was probably the TV cameras across the street from us. (That or the Wyoming state auditor who went by waving like a homecoming queen. Apparently Wyoming really likes their auditor?) The family from the TV show Sister Wives was in town for the parade and were being filmed. The boys wanted to run over there and walk behind the camera but they never got brave enough.
watching the parade, sitting in front of the Zeller's factory on Main Street,
Queen Bee Honey Candies
It was a quite a generous parade. The kids each got a large bag of candy they collected from the various floats. Everyone was handed a "Fat Boy" ice cream sandwich. Miriam was even handed a slice of pizza from the local pizza restaurant. The last entry in the parade was an ambulance which handed out otter pops.
Once the parade was over, I left the kids with the Zellers. William and I headed up to Billings to pick up Dode from the airport. His flight was supposed to be in around 1:00 pm and the plan was for him to spend 1- 1 1/2 hours waiting for me so I could watch the parade before driving up. As I was pulling into the airport, I took out my cell phone to give him a call. I realized that although I'd been carrying it around all day, it was turned off. I powered it up and saw that I had several missed calls and a voice mail. Not wanting to waste time with those, I called Dode to see where he was and got quite a surprising answer, Seattle!
His plane had mechanical troubles and he was yet to leave the airport. He didn't even know when the flight would be leaving. (Those missed calls and voice mails were from him telling me not to drive up yet.) William and I found a Wal-Mart to pick up some things we needed. While there, Dode called to say he was getting on the airplane and would be arriving around 5 pm. He'd been stuck waiting at the airport for four extra hours (on top of the two hours early he had to get there to go through security for his two hour flight! Because of the wait, they gave him a voucher for lunch. He didn't read the fine print on the coupon where it stated the maximum value of $8. He marched up to Anthony's and ordered their halibut and chips and handed over his coupon. "That will be $8 please." (in addition to the coupon) He says it's pretty typical of his shopping skills.
While driving to the airport, I realized I was only driving a block away from the restaurant we went to last year for cinnamon rolls. Once I had a bunch of time to burn, I stopped at Stella's Kitchen for a caramel cinnamon roll.
I'd asked for it to be heated up and they even spread butter all over it. Talk about gilding the lily!
We found a park in town to make the time go faster, North Park. There was a play structure and spray pool for William to play at. I sat in my chair, watched Willliam, and read a book.
William liked spraying other people but did NOT like it when they sprayed him back!
Dode, William and I got back to Lovell around 6:30 pm. Miriam was so happy to get her daddy back. She was in his arms for most of the night. We went to the Lovell fireworks show that night (held at a campground about 15 miles out of town). The kids were so impatient for it to start but eventually it was dark enough. We were a bit worried about how Miriam would handle it because the last two times we've gone to fireworks, she thought they were too loud and had to go to the car before they were finished. She's a year older and the fireworks were across the lake from us so she did just fine. Because it's so dry here, sparks from the fireworks kept igniting small fires on the shore of the lake. I'm not sure if the grand finale was intentional or the result of one of those fires. Suddenly fireworks started going off so frequently you couldn't even take it in. On the shore we could see a pretty good fire where they were coming from. The musical accompaniment couldn't keep up with the pyrotechnic excitement. Intentional or not, it was quite an ending! I think everyone in Lovell and the surrounding towns was at the fireworks. When it was over, a line of cars miles and miles long formed as people left the campground. About every mile, we'd encounter a sheriff car on the side of the road, lights flashing, reminding people to drive safely. Every sheriff car in the county must have been on the side of that road! The line of cars stretched from the campground all the way back to Lovell. It would have looked pretty amazing from the sky.
fireworks in front of a red rock cliff, very pretty
I was so looking forward to having help now that Dode was here. He spent the "getting ready for bed" time the night he got in searching for his contacts case. (He also spent the Sunday night getting ready for bed time searching for his contacts case!) I'm making a note of where that contacts case is for future nights!
Good for you for running the mile...Greg would have been pretty stressed by the firework fires! Sounds like a fun town to visit..glad you are having a good time...relax now dear daughter. Love mom
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