White Mountains, Day Two, afternoon...

Who doesn't love a parade?!? Especially when it is a cute, quaint, small town 4th of July parade!!! 

Early Sunday afternoon Main Street starting in Woodstock and going through Lincoln was closed down for a hour or so for the 4th of July parade. It was everything I hoped it would be: a quintessential, small town, homespun, get the community involved parade!

This is Main Street in Lincoln looking toward where our hotel is. We were hanging out in a parking lot where we would have a perfect view of the parade!

Gotta wait for the train to chug on through. This is a sightseeing/dining train that goes in to the mountains and valleys. The depot is across from where we stayed.

And now it is time for the parade!!!

This small group of older veterans led the parade and immediately my big old schmoopy, sappy self got teary...

I just so loved the small-town, homespun feel of this parade. No fancy floats and giant balloons. Nope! You get decked out SUVs, old pick-ups trucks, and trailers! Love it!

And what is a patriotic parade without old-fashioned cars!!!

I had read that this year's parade was dedicated to Ed and Murray Clark, two brothers that founded the famous Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln. This super popular attraction is still run to this day by members of the Clark family!

I loved how anybody and everybody could be a part of this parade!

{{{ swoooon }}}

Even the animals got in to it!

Dogs!

Cows!

Horses!

What's a small town without a few tractors?!

Obviously something very close to my heart...

Ya wanna be in the parade?! Toss a lawn awning over your four-wheeler and call it good! Love it!

Can I just tell you I turned in to a giddy little child when I spotted Smokey the Bear!!! I can't help it. I always looooved Smokey as a child! If I could have gotten a picture with him it would have made my day! Don't judge!

Can you see the Dalmation riding shotgun?! How flippin cute!!! I loved the mix of the old-fashioned and the newer fire trucks! This is the part of the parade that got reeeeallly loud! We were only a few feet from all those sirens. There were a lot of kids and dogs that freaked!

This is what Bailey did....

Somebody asked us if he is deaf....

So I began and ended the parade getting all teary. I heard that these fine young soldiers are local boys home on leave. I didn't get the best pics but they were all kinds of HOT!!! ;-) Probably ridiculously younger than me, but whatev. Just call me Cougar.

No. Don't.

After the parade we decided to head back out to do some picture taking on the Kanc. I will only post a few pics because they are similar to pics I have posted a gajillion times before here on my blog. I love the Kanc and it is verrry well-photographed by me!

After a couple hours of trail walking and picture taking we were all pretty beat. It had been another long, hot, but fabulous day. We were hungry so we headed back toward Lincoln to pick up pizza to bring back to our rooms. We wanted to rest up a bit because there was still a big fireworks display to come later that night. And all we had to do was head out to the parking lot of our hotel and face Main Street and we had the absolute most perfect view of the fireworks as they lit up the mountains around this quaint little town! I decided not to lug my tripod and other equipment with me to NH so I didn't even bother snapping any pics of the fireworks. I knew I couldn't keep my hand steady long enough to have the shutter open long enough to get good shots. Both my camera and lenses have built-in image stabilization but still. I was so hot and sweaty and tired...it was nice not to have the camera hanging around my neck. Christa did take some and managed to get a few good ones even without a tripod and if she would EVER update her blog (ahem!!!!) maybe she will post them. Just sayin'...