Getting Down with Your Stars and Stripes Part 2

I am typing this in the middle of that Arizona Celebration of Freedom festival I mentioned before (see Get Down with Your Stars and Stripes). 

It’s been great, except for all the crowds.  Some guy stepped on my foot and he didn’t say anything, and I know he noticed.  And I had a coughing fit because some guy was smoking in the middle of the carnival game area, surrounded by children too. 

Other than that, it has been fun.  Plenty of great music, with a surprise performance by Belle of Beauty and the Beast.  A children’s party place had girls dressed like Disney princesses perform the songs from the movies.  Too bad my niece wasn’t there, she would have loved it. 

They had a bunch of these huge inflatable statues of monuments and the Congress building and such.  One of them you could walk inside and get a bit of a history lesson.  Benjamin Franklin was standing outside of it.  I wanted to get a picture, but there were too many people blocking him.  Super popular guy. 

They were tons of classic and not too classic cars, some of them were for sale.  Others seemed to be there to advertise other things though. 

There was this one car that shot flames and stuff, sadly I wasn’t able to get a picture of it in the act.  Again, too many crowds, but the owner was super pleased.

There were of course plenty of craft booths and vendors, including a guy who was doing spray paint demonstrations the whole night.  The fumes from the paint got to me though.  And the most unusual thing I saw were these hats.  They appear to be made from boxes for beer cans.  Ummm.

There was also a rock climbing thing which was great and horrible at the same time.  Great because I love these things, and horrible because I had decided to wear a skirt instead of something more sensible like jeans.  Bye-bye rock wall, at least I looked really cute.

One of the best discoveries I made was this really cute new thrift store.  It’s called the Good Store and it’s here in Downtown Mesa on Main St between Country Club and Robson.  They have a ton of cute clothes and they price it by the pound.  I got a bunch of cute tops, I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.

And a great way to finish the night is fireworks.  They started going off while I was still browsing in the thrift store, they shook some of the walls a little.  They were wonderful, and what was really fun was watching all the people standing outside their stores and homes or in there cars in traffic as they stopped to watch.  It really makes you feel united with your neighbors knowing you are all doing the same thing at the same time.  Overall a good festival and a great holiday so far, enjoy it tomorrow.