Independence Day

The morning started with a trip to Super One grocery store to purchase some pork tenderloin to smoke for dinner. Then is we headed to Nashwauk for the first of our 4th of July parades.

All Northern Minnesota parades have some neccesary components. First you have the Shriner motorcycle shsow, then the Shriner little car show. After that is the local VFW people (who totally deserve our respect and recognition) where everyone stands up, takes off their hats and honors what they have done for us.

Following them is a line up of the local emergency vehicles all clean and shiny. Of course a parade would not be complete without the politicians. A neccesary component of Northern Minnesota parades is candy, thrown our way by the bucket fulls. Mostly Tootsie Rolls in multiple flavors. A band or two is essential as are a few floats presented by local town folk. And to top it off a few old cars.

Our second parade was in Keewatin and looked a lot like the first.

Max at Parad

Connor at Parade

Shriner Motorcycle Patrol

Shriner Little Car Patrol

VFW

Emergency Vehicles

Senator Amy Kobluchar

Max Collecting Candy

1950 Studebaker

Back home after the parades we got the smoker going and loaded it with our pork tenderloin.

Pork Tenderloin in Smoker

Chef Nate

After our wonderful dinner and a long wait for the sun to set we enjoyed our very own fireworks show presented by Nate.

Fireworks Master

Fireworks

Fireworks

All in all it was a pretty fantastic Independence Day.