Land of the Free

We spent our Fourth up in Idaho at the Bob Harman Family Reunion. What a weekend it was--food, waterslides, fishing, sandcastles, skits, cousins I didn't recognize (oh wait, that's a Newman), and more food. What more do you need? We took a little detour and visited Murtaugh , Ryan's mom's hometown. It was fun to see the farm, lake and all three houses. What we discovered, though, is that Murtaugh barely qualifies as a town. There is a school (the "Alamo" has since been torn down), a church, an Ace Hardware, train tracks, Jo's Corner Store, and that's it. Janet said, "It's better than it looks." But for being so small, it was actually quite nice.

The highlight of the weekend was the fireworks show. When I heard we were doing fireworks at Uncle John's, I imagined some sparklers, a few roman candles and, to really make it official, one or two that went into the sky. I couldn't have been more wrong. My first clue should have been the 50+ cars parked along the street. We have a big family, but not this big. The entire community (600 people last year!!) was there, covering the lawns. The fireworks were impressive. They were the kind you have to go to school and get a permit to operate, according to Uncle Kent. They lasted so long my dad got bored and went inside (his attention span was never very long). After 35 minutes of in-your-face, in-the-sky, loud, sparkling, Disneyland-style fireworks Lee Greenwood sang us out. It was quite the evening--too bad we discovered this tradition the year they are selling the farm!