Five Countries Four Marlboroughs: Happy 4th

Today has been one of the highlights of our trip! Happy 4th July!

I looked on the net to see what celebrations there were for 4th July - I saw that there was a parade and festival in Sausalito which is a San Francisco Bay Area city in Marin County with a population of 7000. This community is near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The ferries didn't start til later in the morning so we caught a taxi there to make it in time for the 10am parade. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time - foggy of course! The weather today for the celebrations is just perfect. - about 26 degrees.

We were dropped off in Main Street and talked with a couple from Sausalito who told us we were in the best spot to watch the parade. Whilst we were waiting we talked with a family from the area - everyone here is really friendly, especially when they find out you are from Australia! People lined the street but it wasn't overcrowded or too busy - just right!

The parade started and I have never seen anything like it - Terry and I couldn't stop laughing - we were both excited and stunned. It was one of those moments of, 'are we really seeing this?'. The parade was lead by the chief of police of Sausalito - a really friendly, and female, top cop. The procession had various floats representing all different groups within the community. Each group would throw lollies into the crowd for the kids - James especially loved this part - and everyone was cheering, 'Happy 4th, Happy 4th' There were bands playing, kids dressed up, women's groups, the kazoo group, hey - it looked like absolutely anyone could take part and walk along!

When the parade was over we made our way down to the park to check out the festival. It was a bit surreal - there was the Marlborough family in a real American small town celebrating 4th of July. We met a lady, Malorie, and we sat with her for about an hour. She was really interesting. Then this old guy - looked like he owned the place - came up to Terry and asked him if he would carry things from his car into the park. It was getting quite hot and this guy had Terry running back and forth to his car - this kind of thing could only happen to Terry! He had to carry tables, eskys and even a BBQ!

There was a band playing, people dancing everywhere, lots of dogs (seems like everyone had one) and of course cheeseburgers and hotdogs. As they say, when in Rome.......so Terry lined up to get them, in the line he met 'Peggy' and 'Sandy' then when he came back I was talking to 'Weston' who had his own Segway. We laughed - ff course we would meet American people with these names! Then the national anthem was sung and a giant flag raised.

Will and James starting skipping pebbles across the water and they started a craze. Within 15 minutes there would have been 30 kids doing the same thing.

After a couple of hours we went for a walk around and came across a great little beach on the bay. Even though it was quite hot, no one was really swimming in the water - just using paddleboards on top. We didn't see any fish or marine life in the water - even though it is pretty - it just didn't look healthy.

We headed back to the festival to watch the tug-o-war and traditional egg toss. They had a couple of different 'wars' - of course 'female vs male', 'republicans vs democrats' and 'kids vs cops' There was about 10 officers there and they were really friendly and you could see they were highly respected in their community. The egg toss was great too - with two police declared the winner of the Egg Toss trophy.

We caught the ferry back to Pier 1 which is pretty much out the front of our hotel. Had a bit of a rest and then went up to the Club lounge. We meet a really nice couple, James and Heidi and their little girl Kyia. He was from Oklahoma and she was from Persia. We sat with them most of the night before heading down to Pier 7 to see the fireworks. Bang, bang, bang - clearly we weren't down far enough. The fog had stayed away and all of the crowd began to move down the bay. We continued walking til Pier 19 and watched the fireworks - unbelievable, Happy 4th July! Now this isn't funny but a car caught on fire nearby us and everyone was more interested in the car than the fireworks!

All in all - we just had the most fabulous day. The people we have met are just so welcoming and I really love the spirit and pride of the American people. Their patriotism.

Some of the people we have met have told us the American people will always fight for their voice to be heard - for their rights.

Happy 4th July - or as the Americans say, HAPPY 4TH!