We were worried not everyone would hear the show had moved, thankfully, word spread that the location had changed, and to our knowledge only one family showed up at the house first. Phew! And with it being in a more public place, people felt more free to invite neighbors, friends and family to attend and we had a great turn out! GR estimated 400 people, but it's hard to tell given that we were spread out across 1.5 football fields. It was wonderful to see so many old friends who traveled in to attend the show, and others who were able to work the show into their vacation schedules as they traveled back to KS/MO to visit family.
We had people from CA, CO, AZ, ID, and IA in the audience.
GR did time laps photography of the set up ... one picture every minute for 7 hours or so. It doesn't quite give the amount of work, or the extreme heat they endured enough justice when you see it sped up to less than 1 minute.
And we video taped the show! For all our friends in fireworks banned states, hopefully you can view this on a large screen and not feel like you've missed out too much.
We served 256 root beer floats, same as the year before, though I was prepared to serve more than that. I kept all by two of my hardworking, trash picking-up cub scouts to the 1 per person rule which I think helped manage the quantities a bit more. HyVee put everything I needed on sale for the weekend which was hugely helpful! I was able to make it a one stop shop for all my float needs which was fabulous, and they were the cheapest in town to boot!
Our one bit of excitement for the evening was, what is now being referred to as the "crazy dog lady" by all who witnessed it. About 15 minutes into the show a dark station wagon with a woman driving, goes flying through our caution tape barricade and finally swerves to a stop. Concerned it was an emergency and someone in the crowd was needed, I went to investigate and see what was going on. By the time I got to her, she was stomping around her car trying to untangle it from the caution tape. She was furious, raging with anger. She had been at a dog park a few miles from the soccer fields and the fireworks frightened one of her dogs so badly that it ran off (the ran off part we pieced together a few hours later). She was screaming at the insensitivity of us shooting fireworks so close to a dog park. I apologized but assured her that we had worked with the city and gotten permission to do this and that rather than all the police she should call the city to complain ... it's 10pm at night, 30 minutes past when the sun was totally set, who is in an unlit dog park past dark?
Anyway, she was so angry that she pealed out of the parking lot, nearly taking out a friends toes and coming within inches of driving straight into me. She then nearly hit the neighbors car and then the icing on the cake that sent us to call the police on her, was she came within inches of nearly hit a mother and her two small boys crossing the parking lot to get to their car.
Sadly the police couldn't do anything about the "distraught dog woman" as, with any kind of driving citation, a police officer must witness it and we weren't able to get her plates. The officer who came out to take down our concern for the distraught dog woman and any poor soul that got in her way, was extremely nice. This was our favorite part of the conversation:
"Driving out here I could feel the vibrations of the shells in my squad car ... that and the size of the shells, it's pretty obvious you know what you're doing and not shootin' off bottle rockets in your drive way, and that you've gotta be legit. Next time just give us a heads up so we're in the loop." (We thought the fire chief had done that).
To dispatch: "All the calls from _____ about the fireworks will be ending now - the show's over."
Then turning to the small group of people standing around him, he asks, who's in charge of the show and GR says he is.
Officer Friendly: Who do you work for?
GR: A hospital in Montana?
Officer: No, no I mean, who sponsored the show?
Officer: No, no I mean, who sponsored the show?
GR: I did.
Officer: No, no, who paid for it?
GR: I did.
Officer: You mean, like as community service?
GR: Aahh, kinda, something like that ... you should come out next year.
Officer: Ha, that's cool!
This afternoon GR talked with someone from the local paper who called the city to find out more about the show and if it was going to be an annual thing. We've been doing this for 5 years, and now that we moved a few miles in town, it get's noticed ... interesting. Apparently what happens in the country, stays in the country. Good to know!
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