Oklahoma – Where the wind… part 2

We were fortunate enough to be able to plan our Oklahoma trip so that we were around on the Fourth of July; and on the 4th, we were fortunate enough to celebrate it in Idabel, America.

The drive down to McCurtain County in Southeast Oklahoma was nice, the trees along the Creek Nation Turnpike and the bright sun beaming down upon the rolling hills made me glad to be back in the homeland. It being a beautiful Independence Day, I was very much looking forward to seeing fireworks explode as a sign of my independence. Much to my disappointment, it began to rain just as we pulled into Idabel.

An ordinary person might worry, but I’m married to a Choctaw Indian princess… so we did the rain dance in reverse, and soon enough we were looking at this :) (if you look closely, you can see a hint of a second rainbow above the first)

A double rainbow is a good sign… a sign from the Almighty that it was time to cook hamburgers and light sparklers… while waving American flags around… and singing the national anthem. Here’s our crew:

After eating, I decided that I was going to try to make a giant firework from about 30 large sparklers… I had heard that if you tape all the sparklers tightly together in a bundle, then light it, it will be awesome.

Of course, there were some who doubted, and that’s okay… I, myself, was unsure whether anything more than a giant sparkler show would happen. In fact, after lighting the “fuse sparkler,” I began walking nonchalantly away while saying to Candice’s family, “Yeah, I really don’t think anything will….” <FFFFFWWWWHHHHAAAAAPPPPP!!!> Behind me, a giant explosion had left nothing but a burning fireball of tape and scorched sparkler sticks in the ground. I wish I had that on video. I wish so much. So much.

With our appetite for fireworks piqued, we decided to head over to Hayworth, America for a fireworks show at the “Freedomfest” put on at the Assembly of God Church… they had inflatables, gospel music, and watermelon eating contests :). The map below will help you visualize the story I’m going to tell you.

We were sitting in the back of our truck, getting ready to watch the show. I had my camera at the ready to get some shots of the fireworks. The show started with a couple of bursts from some artillery shells… everyone looked up to see them explode… and in that split second, everyone knew something had gone terribly wrong. The fireworks had not gone up in the air…

You know the cartoon episode where Wile E. Coyote gets a big crate of fireworks to shoot at the roadrunner, and then he ends up catching the whole thing on fire, and all the fireworks go off at once… well… take a look at this…

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It was awesome (nobody got hurt)… stuff started blowing up everywhere, and it lasted about 7 seconds… everyone was in awe… including this guy…

Needless to say, we had a blast… :).