July 4th 2009 - Montana

Saturday morning we went to the Great Falls Independence Day parade and what we thought was going to be a short little local parade turned out to be a two hour local parade complete with an F-15 fly over. We also had two helicopters fly over. They made several passes each one decreasing in altitude and increasing in speed. The last few passes they were so low and going so fast that the birds on top of the roof barely had time to get out of the way. It was so fun! The parade included floats from local churches, political candidates, the boy and girl scouts of America, Coke and Pepsi giving out free soda, bag pipes, local BMX racers, tow trucks, lots of old cars, and of course the farmers of Great Falls showing off their tractors and oh yes their lawn mowers. It was more than we expected and we should have taken that as a clue that Great Falls takes their 4th of July very seriously.

When the movers came to drop our stuff off at the new house in Great Falls I casually asked where the best place to see fireworks on the 4th of July was. The said “go to the Kmart parking lot that is the best place to go unless you go to the stock car races.” Well Matthew and I debated, we thought the stock car races would be tons of fun it we didn’t want to spend the money to go when we had another option that was free.

We went over to Brian and Dana’s for a BBQ and talked the night away until we realized that it was almost 10:00 and time for the fireworks to begin …or so we thought. We all jumped in the car and headed to Kmart. On the way we saw fireworks going off everywhere! It turns out that the fireworks actually start at 8:00pm most of the time. As we got closer to Kmart some of the big fireworks were getting closer. It turns out they were setting them off IN the Kmart parking lot! Matthew and I are of course from Colorado where privately setting off fireworks that leave the ground is illegal. Not so in Great Falls. There were fireworks going off everywhere! I am talking 360 degrees of fireworks and lots going off right next to the truck! We all stood it the bed of the truck and watched in awe. We were up high and could easily turn and see in every direction. Not only were there the fireworks going off in the parking lot, but professional ones going on right behind us that seemed to never end, and even more going on in parking lots all over the city and across the river! I have never seen anything like I saw last night. It is definitely the best/most dangerous fireworks display I have ever been to. We left the Kmart parking lot at about 11:15pm because the people around us seemed to be drinking too much and it was actually getting a little scary with some firework miss fires… We found a beautiful spot next to the 10th Street Bridge where we could watch the skyline of fireworks across the city. We stayed until 12:00 then headed home. The fireworks were will going off as we went to bed. It was a great 4th of July that I will never forget.