Belle Fourche is one of the greatest places to celebrate the 4th of July. The city holds one of the oldest rodeos over the 4th for 4 days. There's a Miss Rodeo South Dakota competition, the Colgate Country Showdown (similar to a small scale American Idol), the carnival sets up on main street, there's a 5k/10k Rodeo Run put on by my friends, the Stores, there's a cattle drive down main street, a fantastic parade and fireworks can be seen across the whole town all week, not to mention the city's display that has been rated in the top 10 for the nation!!!!
Hot Springs also puts on a nice lineup of festivities. They do a city BBQ, a parade, walk and run, mud run, all class reunions every 10 years, city fireworks display, and my favorite, a demo derby.
It's a hard choice every year trying to decide what to go to where.
Wayne's parents reserved camping spots at the local lake down by Hot Springs, Angostura Reservoir. It was on the summer bucketlist and is hard to get reservations at any time during the summer, and darn near impossible for the 4th without reserving a year ahead of time.
We decided to split our time between the two places and hit as many events as possible. This made for an incredibly busy week/end.
First up, the carnival!! It cost $16 for 20 tickets, or $25 for an unlimited one day wristband pass. Hmmmm....
Yeah we went with 3 wristbands for 3 boys and one sheet of tickets for Mommy & Jake to split. I still need to go on the ferris wheel with the boys and enjoy it as well.
We found out, we should have gotten Jake the wristband! He was so into every single ride they would let him on!!!
The boys usually find their friends down there and keeping track of them becomes interesting.
One year a couple of police officers came up to me in line with Zach and Andy and asked if Zach was mine. Quisitively I said yes. They then informed me a little blonde boy wearing a plaid shirt, jeans and cowboy boots was missing. (It's Belle Fourche on the 4th, Rodeo Capital, every little boy is wearing a plaid shirt, jeans and cowboy boots and we are primarily of the Arian race in this region....so blonde. Good Luck, I hope you find him, with all my heart as I squeeze the boys closer, I hope you find him).
Zach was very into the big kid rides this year, the Octopus or Spider, being his favorite. He wasn't tall enough to go on all of them alone, so we would have to ask random kids if he could ride with them. Andy tried to hang with him for a little bit, but the big kid rides make him want to throw up. :(
We definitely got our money's worth out of the wristbands. They did not stop riding rides until we bribed them with funnel cakes, candy apples adn cotton candy. A carnival must is a funnel cake!!! There are only so many opportunities for this in one's lifetime!!! Take full advantage!!!!
We lit off our own fireworks...
We watched fireworks from the deck....
The 4th I woke up and headed down to the Rodeo Run. I left Jake and the jogging stroller behind, determined to run, not walk. The stroller was my crutch to walk. I did run, and walk, and run and walk. I also twisted something in my knee which caused me to hobble most the rest of the weekend.
It started to rain, thunder and lightning shortly after I crossed the finish line.
I headed home, then we loaded up and headed for the parade. Belle Fourche 4th of July parade is one of the longest, fullest parades you will find. There are some amazing entries too.
Some of my favorites....
When the parade was 3/4ths of the way through, it began to rain again, hard. We decided to head out and dry out. We went right on down to Hot Springs. I had hoped to catch the demo derby, but instead decided we better go on down to the lake and get set up.
There were 5 sites in our group. Many from the Southern Hills E-Free Church of Hot Springs. Wayne's Aunt & Uncle from Salem also drove out for the weekend.
Good People, Good Food, Good Times.
Some highlights...
The food, dutch ovens, smokers and grills
Zach found a bazzare bug we later found out to be a wind scorpion or camel spider that people could not believe would be found in Hot Springs, SD as many of our local armed force men seen them much larger in Afghanistan. It was awesome and kept it until it died, twice.
Boating and skiing with the Lents
My hammock
Taking a heat break at Evan's Plunge
Tearing down 5 campsites in 22 minutes and heading out before a severe storm....which we aren't sure if it ever actually hit.
Happy 4th Of July!!!!!
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