Happy Independence Day

My best Independence Day celebration ever was spent in Silverton, Colorado. Silverton, an old mining town, is nestled in a valley in the San Juan Mountains along the million dollar highway between Durango and Ouray. The town sets its fireworks display on a ridge above the town, and at an elevation of over 9,000 feet, the display is breathtaking. The splashes of fire across the dome of the sky seemed close enough to touch and the echoes of the booms off the sides of the mountains brought the same thrill one gets on an amusement park ride. It was fantastic. The ride down off the mountain in the dark was a little hairy. Gosh, I miss living near there.
This video doesn't do it justice, even with the sound turned up all the way.

Book Ramble

Is Weatherford having a fireworks show this year?

It's so nice to sit out on the patio of a morning when the weather is like this. The afternoons are sort of sauna-ish, but the cool misty mornings are wonderful. The rain yesterday broke my heart in the way it quietly and gently fell. It reminded me of the rainy summer I turned 13, which was an idyllic time in my life.

I am glad I rediscovered the library. One of the things I have missed the most about my previous life is being able to go to a book store and buy books. It's more practical to borrow them from a library anyway. The only drawback is that this library doesn't always have the books I want to read. I could not find 1 Greg Iles book, and I only found 2 Jodi Picoult books. I didn't check the card catalog. Maybe they have them all and they're checked out. I've read all but 1 written by each of those authors. I want to read The Help by Kathy Strockett and couldn't find it.

I have a preference for reading southern fiction. I don't know why since I am not a daughter of the South. My present location is as far south as I have ever lived. Maybe I was a southerner in a past life, or maybe it's a remnant of my youthful infatuation with Rhett Butler. Right now I am a couple of chapters into reading Pat Conroy's South of Broad, and it's excellent.

I know I am not the only person to wonder why Harper Lee stopped writing (or at least publishing) after To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the best ever novels in southern fiction. Some say she didn't write it at all, that it was written by Truman Capote. I can't think of a reason why he'd have allowed that to happen considering what I have read about his personality. I know he was not liked at all by any of the people who met him when he was in my home town doing research for In Cold Blood. My ex FIL hated him, with reason. He had worked for the Clutters.

Another little jewel of a book, Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail, was written by author Louise Shivers who has published only 1 more book since. I found author Bev Marshall a few years ago and I have been watching for her to publish another book. I hear she's written a sequel to Right as Rain but it's sitting on her agent's desk awaiting a publisher.

Have a safe and fun 4th of July. Happy Independence Day.

QUESTION

I also read the Craigslist Job Ads for the DFW area. Do you suppose when the say the location is "Uptown" they mean Dallas or Fort Worth? I figure they're meaning Dallas.

Buffalo Bill

One of my time wasters is to read Craigslist Missed Connections. This ad stuck out last night. I laughed when I read it, but wouldn't it be awful if he was being serious?

I can't find a link for this video outside of Facebook, so I am going to try it this way and hope it works. This is a graphic and haunting video about unsafe driving. It's fairly long and it'll make you think, either about your own driving habits or about being more diligent when watching out for the other guy. It seems especially pertinent with the holiday weekend coming up.

edit: I think the link only works if you're logged into Facebook.
re-edit: I found the website and I am not going to link to it because the site disgusting.

THANK YOU, MZCHIEF!