7.8.2007...4th of July

Hello everyone where ever you are. Yes, that's for the Americans in Italy. You know who you are. (and a special hello to Aunt Dot in Florida,) Anyway, we thought we might share with you our July 4th celebration. Monica and I decided to go up to Mt. Lemmon. 105 degrees in Tucson, 84 degrees on top of Mt. Lemmon, elevation 8000' to 9000' some odd feet. Tough choice huh? There we met by chance some friends from Tucson, with their two grown sons who were visiting from Seattle. This was probably a little different celebration than that found in Seattle (or most other places for that matter.)

Well what better all American way to start off our little celebration than with a dad, son, pooch and an american flag? Very traditional. Really.



OK, a Triumph TR-3 (British, rather appropriate I'd say) with a grinning like the devil driver settled under a Dr. Seuss like American hat (we're pretty much all right so far) and a.....I don't know what's sitting next to him. Free choice. Very American!



Apparently, the theme of this 4th of July celebration is.....wait for it......Snow White. Now I think we're stretching things a bit, but the pois-0-n apple had a heck of a costume.



And her dog looks as though he's gonna die from embarrassment. She put that dress on him. He's probably looking for some of that poison apple right about now.



Ah, this looks more like it. A park ranger with an all American smile, the American flag and a....mule? Yup, I've been assured that's a mule alright.



Back to our theme for the 4th (someone please explain this to me, although I don't care, it was wonderfully kooky) here's the wicked Queen, I think. Wow, that's some puss.



Can you imagine what she would have looked like in a costume and some makeup?



I'll let these proud residents of Mt. Lemmon speak for themselves. I wonder which fine president the 2nd person from the right is portraying? Some one from the newly formed Planet of the Apes political party?



These next four shots were all taken from our roof, which has a decent view of the "official" Tucson fireworks. The show takes place from on top of "A" mountain just to the west of downtown. You can faintly see the outline of "A" mountain if you look carefully just below the exploding rockets. The fireworks were really quite a distance from us (we couldn't hear them at all,) but through the use of a good long lens and some cropping in the MAC, they look close
enough. You can also just make out the tell tale dotted lights from a passing airplane, just to the right of the fireworks in the below photo.






Well, here's looking at all of you (oh all right, I snitched this shot from those taken on top of Mt. Lemmon earlier that day. She was part of the press coverage of the parade up there, although I'm not sure exactly what she was covering as she was clearly not pointed in the same direction as the other members of the press-not to say she was wrong and they were right!).