Fireworks, Fireworks & more Fireworks

These last two weeks it's really been tough to focus, on anything!  It's a post vacation & pre-vacation time period, with lots of weird stuff to send me drifting.  Like the pain in my jaw that lasted way longer than I expected.   Oh did I tell you about wiping out on a wave & being drug to shore on my face?  Sorry I guess I left that out, anyway I had to have emergency dental work, because I busted my back molar in two.  Do you think maybe that wave slammed my face fairly hard?  Wow, the power of water!  I'm just glad I still have both of my front teeth & my nose wasn't broken.

Then I got to do something I had been dreading since October.  I went in for a potential biopsy on my breast.  It aspirated, so a biopsy wasn't necessary and the results came back benign.  I was doing the happy dance over that, but it still hurts & it's been a week.

Along with that we've been alternating the cars into the mechanic's shop for the last 4 days.  Yet I'll I can do is dream about next week.  I'm attending my 30 year reunion

(STOP ~ do not start doing math).

My two best girlfriends & I get to hang out for a whole week, along with a slew of other very dear friends, some whom I've known my entire life.  I attended a very small county school, and most of us started kindergarten there and went all the way through 12th grade.  These people are like family in the sense that we've known each other most of our lives.  I'm so excited to see everyone, I'm just busting at the seams!

So If things come in three's then the Fireworks should be over, enjoy the slide show.

 Make sure to look for the jellyfish and the knife chasing the lotus towards the end - they're kind of cool.

Ciao!

Taste of Tippecanoe Lafayette, Indiana

Taste of Tippecanoe  

Lafayette /West Lafayette Indiana - biggest party of the year.

 5 stages - 20 bands of various genre; 42 restaurants slinging goodies as fast as they can for the swelling crowds.

Taste of Tippecanoe is a great night to run into old acquaintances.  But it's getting so big (over the bridge into Tapawingo Park on the west side) that it seems to be bit more difficult to bump into friends.

What I really like about the Taste is that most of vendors are local restaurants, with the exception of a few like Applebee's, Cold Stone Creamery & Lord have mercy McDonalds was there.  We really need to Quit giving our money to these big chain restaurants.  There are lots of local vendors begging for your patronage.  Their food is better and they treat you like family once you get to know them.

Of course I have to stop and visit my favorite bars while I'm downtown.  One of them happens to be owned by a good buddy of mine, a former Region friend  Jeff Haman.

That's him & his girlfriend standing out front.

I was So impress that he stood out front all day

to greet his guest. ~ Kudo's Jeff ;)

The Knickerbocker Saloon is the oldest bar in Indiana.

This bar sits in the old Larh Hotel.  The very same one Ulysses S. Grant  rode the train up to - (the tracks use to run right in front of the Knickerbocker) to give his campaign speech for president.   I've had the opportunity & pleasure to search every crevasse of this beautiful hotel  from the basement and the lower, original old alley (where they kept pins for the fresh live stock to be butchered) to the top of the roof in the wee morning hours to watch the Amish girls setting up their stand for the farmers market.  It truly is a wonderful piece of architecture - especially that illustrious Marble stair case.

Knickerbocker Saloon use to be a barber shop/saloon.

Stop by their website if you'd like to learn more about the history of the hotel.  It also so has some good true horror/ghost stories like the guest who guillotined himself ~ Boo!

So I finally made it into the Black Sparrow (yeah I know how long it's been open).  This place would so have been one my regular haunts.  Love the ambiance & music, and I hear the foods not bad either.

Nice how they exposed & play up the early construction.

As we were leaving the Black Sparrow we immediately bump into Tom Fisher & his wife.  Tom Fisher's grandfather use to have a Tailor Shop at that location long ago.

Weird that they happen to be the 1st people we saw.

And their guest look like they have a lot of fun.  Thought she walked in with a lighted, rainbow dildo - but I guess it was just some kind of glow stick, since I saw a bunch of little kids outside playing with them. ;)

They we're good sports.  Isn't she a doll?

Taste always ends with a big fireworks show.  Something to whet your whistle for the 4th of July.

Ooops almost forgot these two cuties.

Shooting t-shirts to the crowd

Ciao!