Louisville’s skyline the day before. It had been raining every day for the last several, but 4th of July was nothing but sunny. Thank you, God.
The morning of 4th of July, we were excited. There were some big things ahead. We’d planned on some special happenings, and were excited about them. God had some other special things coming that we had no idea about.
Our first stop was the Kentucky Derby Museum. We’re not horse racing fans or proponents, but Dayne loves horses, as mentioned in an earlier post. And he’s also read a good portion of the Black Stallion series. He’s got dreams of one day owning a horse, and even has several names chosen. In the book series, there are many horse races, and visiting the KDM and Churchill Downs was thrilling to him in that he could see a setting like this for himself.
We also did some horsin’ around…
We left Churchill Downs for the Waterfront Park. In looking up Louisville’s 4th of July activities, we saw they’d be planting 15,000 America flags in the ground to honor service men and women, law enforcement, and first responders. This seemed like a very worthwhile thing to help with, and they were soliciting volunteers.
We showed up to the spot that seemed like the spot, only to find it empty. We walked around a little more and came upon another family looking for the flag people. We spent some time chatting and problem solving.
Thankfully, there was an official looking golf cart going by, so I asked if they knew anything. While waiting for a reply over the walkie talkie, a local news reporter and her camerman drove up. They were also looking for the flag people. We got to chatting, and she asked us what brought us down to the park. After telling our story, she said, “Well, I’ve got to interview you!”
So, we did an interview about our trip and adventures right there at the park. The news station kindly featured our story among their others for the day. That was an amazing, uexpected blessing we never saw coming. If you’d like to watch the interview, click on this link:
If the link doesn’t work, you can Google this phrase: family takes cross country trip to appreciate America
We eventually heard back the noon start time for flags was a misprint, and it would begin at 3. With some time to kill, Sara, the news reporter, gave us some great ideas of where to go next while waiting for 3pm.
This was a fantastic place to go on a HOT day like this. We already had two layers of sweat on, and there’d be more added as the day went on.
They even welcomed Melbee into the AC and gave her some water. She was very grateful. So were we.
Sara also suggested going to Crescent Hill. We did and found some good old-fashioned 4th of July fun!
Then we headed back to Waterfront Park to help with flags.
This was a beautiful scene with the Ohio River in the background.
This is our flag family, the Mays. They were there with us at noon, and came back later, as well. We’re so glad to have had the chance to get to know them while doing the flags. (Their daughter is taking the photo.) John is running for KY State auditor, but you’d never know it. He never acted like anything other than a hard working guy who wasn’t afraid to sweat while doing something special for his country. Shellie was such a lovely person. We wish we lived in KY just to get to see them again.
We headed back to Big Boy for some festive 4th of July family traditions — sub sandwiches and American Flag cookie.
The day ended with beautiful flare!
God bless America, our home sweet home.
A Malo Walkabout 