4th of July is my favorite holiday. Though when my sister told that to my nephew his quick-witted response was "you like it more than Jesus' birth?!"
Did I mention he's only a 3rd grader?
Anyway, for the 4th - my family goes all out. Even my dad gets into it with his lanterns and cherry bombs.
Don’t ask. There’s a lot of family legends involving those particular fireworks.
Anyway, we did tons of parachutes, sparklers, fountains, artillery shells, snakes, crackling balls, and ground blooms and yet I still have leftovers. Except for smoke bombs I’m out of those. Turns out my godson and niece are pyros and blew through two boxes in a single afternoon.
Not bags.
Boxes of those bags.
Apparently they take after me. Even Bex never matches her socks, I’m so proud.
Anyway, after all the gunpowder and glory – and I say glory because one of the neighbors set off a huge firework down the street and my nephew's quick-witted response (yes, same nephew) was “That sounds like glory!” – I had an interesting journey back to my apartment.
So imagine this, you’re driving down the interstate. It’s like 11:00 PM. Pitch dark. You see two trucks in a row going slow and decide to pass them. Mid-pass of the back truck you look over and see a turn signal flashing. Suddenly said truck is pulling into your lane.
That was my adventure on the way home from fireworks. Needless to say I swerved into the median to avoid him, then swerved back to avoid a reflector pole.
So maybe those Defensive Driving courses (aka the 2 STOP classes I’ve taken) were actually worth something.
Had to call the boyfriend at work who then made me get it checked out the next day. Thankfully there was just some grass and mud underneath so they didn’t even charge me. Though it did make me hesitant to drive for a while.
After the 4th came our Motorcar Adventure in Centerville, Iowa. It was supposed to rain all weekend but somehow it contained itself and only ended up pouring Saturday night after we were done.
The boyfriend doesn’t have air conditioning in his box van so we left early Friday. Ended up riding Friday night, then most of the day Saturday and again Sunday morning and afternoon.
It was a lot of fun. Minus the heat that is. 85 degrees may not sound so bad when compared to 90’s, however when you’re out in the sun with no shade or breeze it gets hot fast. Thankfully when we were moving you didn’t notice.
For some reason something always goes wrong when I’m riding with him and his car started acting up. Luckily he had a second in the van so we switched them out. And then got crap for it.
According to his motorcar buddies, apparently, “some people bring spare parts, Popper Boy brings spare cars.”
Don’t ask about the nickname. It’s a long story. And it's spread. I'm apparently now Popper Gal. Or Popper Girl. I get to choose.
I was bummed because one of his buddies didn’t make it there. Actually I think that’s the one that so lovingly dubbed his as Popper Boy. He’s the one making us plan our wedding around his schedule.
Jokingly. I hope.
After the ride this guy sent the boyfriend a picture of a billboard for a jewelry company. It had a picture of a ring with the subtitle: Your Girlfriend Wants Me.
I told him I approved.
Anyway, here are a few pictures of our Motorcar Excursion.
and of the lineup
Yay for panoramas.
After all that fun the boyfriend and I hit up the Paul McCartney concert. We’re both huge Beatles fans and even though it was semi-expensive (although really not all that bad) we figured 1. He’s getting older and how many more tours is he going to go on. 2. He’s not from the states. And 3. When is he going to come here again? Chicago or Denver perhaps but not here. So we went for it.
It was excellent. He played for 2 and a half hours before taking a break. Not bad for a 72-year-old, who by the way, still doesn’t look a day over 50. He had an excellent lineup including his Beatles stuff, his Wings stuff, and a bit of his New stuff. He joked he can tell which songs people want to hear because when the classics start playing all the cameras go up but when the new stuff starts playing they go back down.
After playing for that long he came back for not one, but two encores saying something to the effect of, “you know I have to go home sometime…” But he was excellent, lots of Husker and Nebraska references which were amusing. Played most of my favorite songs, and the boyfriend and I really enjoyed it.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from that:
On to the music:
Gotta go with Paul on this one.
Silly Love Songs - Paul McCartney & Wings
The boyfriend was disappointed cause apparently this is his favorite McCartney song. I told him it could be our first dance song, but he’s stuck on that stalker song by The Police and envisions our wedding party following us around with binoculars and cameras. Which would actually be highly entertaining.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about try actually listening to the lyrics to this song:
Every Breath You Take – The Police
Back to the actual Rec’s
Yesterday - The Beatles
He waited 'til the encores to play that one so we knew he was coming back...
Extended Rec’s
Whilst motorcarring I had my own playlist on repeat that consisted of a ton of Lily Allen. I bought her new album before we left. Here's my favorite from the new album:
As Long As I Got You - Lily Allen
Love it.
I was so proud the boyfriend actually knew who she was. Or one of her songs at least. It’s kind of a big deal to me as she holds the number three spot on my list of favorite artists of all time and no one here knows her. For those of you wondering it goes:
1. Maroon 5
2. She & Him
3. Lily Allen
4. The Wreckers
5. Eminem
Yes, I’m aware it’s a random lineup.
But if you were to change it to current radio it would become:
1. Maroon 5
2. She & Him
3. Lily Allen
4. Karmin
5. Is up for debate. Maybe Cassadee Pope.
Because The Wreckers haven't come up with anything since I was in college and I don't like Em's new stuff.
Sorry.
Have you heard Weird Al’s new song Word Crimes? I feel like it could be my new theme song.
Only online for a week and it's almost at 10 million views...
Alright, that’s all I got. Next up will be camp stuff which always comes with lots of stories to post about. Hope you have a rockin’ week.
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