{"id":5018,"date":"2018-07-05T19:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T02:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5018"},"modified":"2018-07-05T19:00:51","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T02:00:51","slug":"party-in-the-usa-ketchikan-alaska-07-04-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5018","title":{"rendered":"Party in the USA \u2013 Ketchikan, Alaska \u2013 [07\/04\/2018]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There are perhaps a lot of things that I disagree with in regards to the attitude of our neighbours on the other side of the border, but one thing is for certain they know<\/em> how to celebrate. Especially in a comparatively little town like Ketchikan, where it seems that everyone<\/em> knows everyone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We knew we were calling here on July 4th<\/sup>, so we were prepared for a great deal of red, white and blue \u2013 but I wasn\u2019t prepared for just how much cheer<\/em> was everywhere. Smiles were as big a decoration as the buntings and massive American flags.<\/p>\n

And there was a parade\u2026<\/p>\n

Oh how I love parades\u2026<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been to a city parade in years, in fact I don\u2019t think I even really remember when the last time I made it downtown for the Victoria Day Parade was \u2013 there are reasons for that I suppose, but standing there in the beating warm sun (yup, sun, in Alaska, it was hot<\/em>\u2026so strange!) listening to the police sirens announce the start of the parade, none of those reasons really seemed quite right. Parades bring people together, and perhaps next year I will make a point of getting downtown for ours. There is something about the opening of parades \u2013 no matter where they are \u2013 that brings tears to my eyes. I am the most Canadian girl pretty much ever, I will bristle if anyone so much as even hints otherwise, but I am still a major sucker for patriotism, and when the bagpipes marched by playing the national anthem I will absolutely admit to tearing up. The other<\/em> thing that brought tears of course was the dance schools\u2026there\u2019s always at least one in every parade, and the routines haven\u2019t changed much since I was doing them myself. Some things are always<\/em> going to bring tears of nostalgia.<\/p>\n

Happily munching on candy from the parade (yeah, everyone deserves to \u2018misbehave\u2019 once in a while), we wandered through the bright summer sun to the local museum \u2013 which is a tiny little place that is none the less steeped in so much of interest. Especially photographs \u2013 there is something really beautiful about old photographs. Film is a lost art, though thankfully not lost completely. It has a life that digital simply does not have. And of course in every museum I go to I learn something, in this case the fact that the city has a tradition of having every guest who comes to their table sign their names on a tablecloth, after which the names are embroidered and the whole thing once it\u2019s full gets hung on a wall somewhere. Such a cool tradition! If and when we end up on land, I suspect it\u2019s one I may adopt.<\/p>\n

Then off we went in search of ice cream and photo opportunities. And there are plenty of both on the 4th<\/sup> of July. Creek Street looks different in the sunshine, it takes on a whole new persona that seldom gets seen. It makes all the colours brighter.<\/p>\n

And for the first time that I can ever remember, I got sunburn<\/em> in Ketchikan!<\/p>\n

Yup, this? This was definitely<\/em> one of those awesome days.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are perhaps a lot of things that I disagree with in regards to the attitude of our neighbours on the other side of the border, but one thing is for certain they know how to celebrate. Especially in a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-steam-heat-2018"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-1iW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5020,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5018\/revisions\/5020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}