Despite not liking loud noises, the Pipsqueak rapidly came to share my sister's love for fireworks, so it's become a family tradition to enjoy them together every July 4th (more often, if possible). We didn't do much with the neighborhood parade this year, instead taking advantage of a "nothing day" for all of us to catch up on some sleep and deal with the evening in a leisurely manner.
We got to the UM College Park campus with plenty of time to spare and set up our camp....
...and the usual discussions of where the right spot was, whether there was enough room, whether the seats were falling over, etc. etc. had barely come to a (successful) close before the band started to play down at the other end of the parking lot.
Since we're both alums of College Park, AJ & I decided to take a look around at some of the changes time has wrought on our once-familiar campus.
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| Hey -- I used to park there! Where'd that building come from?!? |
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| The only angle I could find that still looks the same... |
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| The Pipsqueak made some new friends. (Betcha didn't know Kermit was a UMCP alum!) |
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| Miri couldn't understand why Mommy and Uncle Brian liked the weird place so much... |
After returning to the family spot -- and explaining to Miri that she had to finish both elementary school and high school before she could become a college student -- it was time to just chill out and have a bite to eat. I don't have any photos of us putting our sandwiches together because all hands were needed on deck to juggle the plates, rolls, sandwich fixin's, and assorted other stuff while alternately using the cooler as a table/prep counter and having to open it to retrieve something someone forgot to take out before... but it was all good. :-)
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| Two happy people. |
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| "Hi, Grandma!" |
We people-watched, talked about this & that (AJ and I groused a bit over how much the campus had changed and how some of our fave hangout spots had been paved over or demolished), and counted down the minutes until the fireworks. Finally, after a few stragglers had squeezed into the last couple of (tight) parking spots, the band finished their last set, tand he local fire company finished hoisting their huge American flag between two tower trucks, all the lights went out and...
Once the show was over, we carefully loaded all our stuff back into AJ's van -- a process not unlike a game of "Frogger" (albeit with much higher stakes) due to the number of cars with drivers intent on beating everyone else out of the parking lot at any cost. UMCP traffic control is usually pretty good, but this time it was kinda wonky; every exit got stacked up quickly and stayed that way, while the local roads (one of which is a six-lane divided highway) reached saturation while most people were still loading their cars. It took a over half an hour for us just to reach the campus exit, and that was via a route we didn't even know existed.
Eventually, we were truly on our way home, and (unlike other years) Miri stayed awake for most of the ride. Everyone wished everyone else a groggy "goodnight" at our folks' house, and we all headed for our respective beds after one more enjoyable family Independence Day together.
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