Parking at the fireworks
I should have been in bed hours ago! I've been working on photos and didn't get home until late. Today I went to the fireworks show in Richland, Missouri. They always have their Independence Day Celebrations about a week later so more people can attend. For a small town they put on a huge fireworks display!
I went with my mom, nephew Elijah and stepfather Chuck. This was the first time we have been in about five years. It sure doesn't feel like it's been that long, time flies! They start things off at 5:00pm, which isn't much usually a local band that nobody has ever heard of and they open the concession stand. We got down there about 6:00 because we wanted to get a really good parking place. There was also a truck and tractor pull going on in the park and people had started arriving for that. Parking was a DISASTER!
We pull in and I get a really sweet spot! I'm shifting into park and this lady runs over and says I can't park there because they want to reserve it to park a fire truck there later. Yeah ok lady whatever! You aren't going to fit a fire truck where I'm parked there isn't enough room and there was no reason they would park a fire truck there anyway when they could park closer in the fenced off area. It made no sense, but I'm nice and I move. The first two rows were so screwed up and uneven the cars were parked in a V pattern with about four to five car lengths at the widest point.
So I drive down to where they are now parking cars and one of the kids direct me down to the end of the row. So here is the lady AGAIN! I can already tell this row is all screwed up! She's like back in by this truck down there and I'll direct you in. Ok whatever! I don't even pay attention to her directions and I back in next to the truck. I'm all lined up with the truck perfect and she's still directing me. Why the heck does she want me to keep backing up farther? The idiot wants me to parallel park behind the truck and in front of a car. They are blocking everyone in with no lanes to get out! I don't think so! She comes up to the window and I just let her have it! I'm like look my mom has a medical condition and is handicap, we're not getting blocked in so we can't leave! I'm freaking pissed at this point! Because their idiots and my mom can't walk two miles. So they are parking a few people on the grass too and so I drive around and park there.
By this time the place where I had originally had parked is no occupied with cars, but luckily there is enough space to put our chairs up. So about 30 minutes later we're sitting there and who do we run into THE LADY! She says something like I guess you found a spot. And I'm like yeah, it looks like the fire truck won't be able to get in now good thing they parked over there (in the fenced off safety area, the obvious place you'd park a fire truck) and we can actually get out when we want to leave. I think she could see how pissed off I was and she stammered something about "Well we're just volunteers" and then she continued to put up barriers blocking off the only entrance/exit to the parking lot. Those lasted about five minutes before they wanted to leave because a few people who were able to get their cars out wanted to leave.
About 10 minutes later I witnessed the lady get her butt chewed out by whoever was in charge for putting up the barriers and parking people on the grass. I can only imagine the fallout which was sure to come later when the tractor pulls and fireworks ended and 90% of the people found they could not get their cars out of the parking lot because they were completely boxed in and had to wait for the owners of the car in front or behind them to move.
Then to keep any more people from parking on the grass they get the yellow caution tape like the police line do not cross tape and run is back and forth between two trees blocking off the driveway into the grass. We're in my mom's mini-van which has very little ground clearance, it's going to be dark when the fireworks end and I'm not going off roading through the park to find another way out. I look over at the caution tape and I go "If that shit's still there when the fireworks are over I'm driving through it!". Unfortunately a car beat me to it and took out the bottom four strands, but I got the top one with the antenna and roof rack.
The mini-van that had parked beside us pulled out just before I did and they chose to go over the curb in front of them. Scraped the whole bottom of the car, bounced them all around and nearly high centered themselves.
Chuck tried to get me to do the same thing since they had "made it". Thank god I was driving! He would have actually tried it. If anything our mini-van is lower than theirs and the spare tire is under the vehicle between the driver and passenger, right in the center. It hangs down even lower, half the time we drag it on speed bumps.
Then these people had camped out behind us on their blanket in the grass. They could see we were loading the stuff in our van and didn't bother to move. I'm like sorry guys you gotta move, we're going to be backing up and they grudgingly got up and moved. Then we spent about another 3 minutes sitting there waiting for people to move from in front of us who were just standing there completely oblivious to anything around them.
Probably the craziest thing was almost seeing a guy get killed. Chuck, Elijah and I were walking down to the concession stand. There was this big (I'm over compensating) truck, the kind that's raised up real high, screw the environment I've got a huge truck, kinda trucks was there. There were three people in the cab and they looked young, late teens to early 20s. There had been an old guy (probably a relative) riding in the back of the truck since the front was full. I guess there had also been a woman with him, because I saw her talking to the guy afterwards and yelling at the people in the truck. So I assume she had got out first before I had taken notice. The guy (looked like he was in his late 50s early 60s) climbed out over the side, probably using the tire as a step since the truck was raised up real high. He was about 3/4 of the way out when the people in the truck just assumed he was out and clear of the truck. Being the morons that they are they just can't drive like normal people. They compensate with the truck, they have to also compensate with their driving. So instead of just a normal take off they think their hot shit and gun it for no logical reason. Luckily the guy wasn't hurt, just literally knocked him right out of his shoes and he was limping a little afterwards. Then they stopped and just sit there like a bunch of morons while the lady asked the guy if he was hurt and then started yelling at them and they just continued to sit there like a bunch of morons in the middle of the road with crazy busy traffic until the lady yelled at them to go on. I guess they were there for the truck pull, we saw them later driving in the grass again like a bunch of morons.
I went with my mom, nephew Elijah and stepfather Chuck. This was the first time we have been in about five years. It sure doesn't feel like it's been that long, time flies! They start things off at 5:00pm, which isn't much usually a local band that nobody has ever heard of and they open the concession stand. We got down there about 6:00 because we wanted to get a really good parking place. There was also a truck and tractor pull going on in the park and people had started arriving for that. Parking was a DISASTER!
We pull in and I get a really sweet spot! I'm shifting into park and this lady runs over and says I can't park there because they want to reserve it to park a fire truck there later. Yeah ok lady whatever! You aren't going to fit a fire truck where I'm parked there isn't enough room and there was no reason they would park a fire truck there anyway when they could park closer in the fenced off area. It made no sense, but I'm nice and I move. The first two rows were so screwed up and uneven the cars were parked in a V pattern with about four to five car lengths at the widest point.
So I drive down to where they are now parking cars and one of the kids direct me down to the end of the row. So here is the lady AGAIN! I can already tell this row is all screwed up! She's like back in by this truck down there and I'll direct you in. Ok whatever! I don't even pay attention to her directions and I back in next to the truck. I'm all lined up with the truck perfect and she's still directing me. Why the heck does she want me to keep backing up farther? The idiot wants me to parallel park behind the truck and in front of a car. They are blocking everyone in with no lanes to get out! I don't think so! She comes up to the window and I just let her have it! I'm like look my mom has a medical condition and is handicap, we're not getting blocked in so we can't leave! I'm freaking pissed at this point! Because their idiots and my mom can't walk two miles. So they are parking a few people on the grass too and so I drive around and park there.
By this time the place where I had originally had parked is no occupied with cars, but luckily there is enough space to put our chairs up. So about 30 minutes later we're sitting there and who do we run into THE LADY! She says something like I guess you found a spot. And I'm like yeah, it looks like the fire truck won't be able to get in now good thing they parked over there (in the fenced off safety area, the obvious place you'd park a fire truck) and we can actually get out when we want to leave. I think she could see how pissed off I was and she stammered something about "Well we're just volunteers" and then she continued to put up barriers blocking off the only entrance/exit to the parking lot. Those lasted about five minutes before they wanted to leave because a few people who were able to get their cars out wanted to leave.
About 10 minutes later I witnessed the lady get her butt chewed out by whoever was in charge for putting up the barriers and parking people on the grass. I can only imagine the fallout which was sure to come later when the tractor pulls and fireworks ended and 90% of the people found they could not get their cars out of the parking lot because they were completely boxed in and had to wait for the owners of the car in front or behind them to move.
Then to keep any more people from parking on the grass they get the yellow caution tape like the police line do not cross tape and run is back and forth between two trees blocking off the driveway into the grass. We're in my mom's mini-van which has very little ground clearance, it's going to be dark when the fireworks end and I'm not going off roading through the park to find another way out. I look over at the caution tape and I go "If that shit's still there when the fireworks are over I'm driving through it!". Unfortunately a car beat me to it and took out the bottom four strands, but I got the top one with the antenna and roof rack.
The mini-van that had parked beside us pulled out just before I did and they chose to go over the curb in front of them. Scraped the whole bottom of the car, bounced them all around and nearly high centered themselves.
Chuck tried to get me to do the same thing since they had "made it". Thank god I was driving! He would have actually tried it. If anything our mini-van is lower than theirs and the spare tire is under the vehicle between the driver and passenger, right in the center. It hangs down even lower, half the time we drag it on speed bumps.
Then these people had camped out behind us on their blanket in the grass. They could see we were loading the stuff in our van and didn't bother to move. I'm like sorry guys you gotta move, we're going to be backing up and they grudgingly got up and moved. Then we spent about another 3 minutes sitting there waiting for people to move from in front of us who were just standing there completely oblivious to anything around them.
Probably the craziest thing was almost seeing a guy get killed. Chuck, Elijah and I were walking down to the concession stand. There was this big (I'm over compensating) truck, the kind that's raised up real high, screw the environment I've got a huge truck, kinda trucks was there. There were three people in the cab and they looked young, late teens to early 20s. There had been an old guy (probably a relative) riding in the back of the truck since the front was full. I guess there had also been a woman with him, because I saw her talking to the guy afterwards and yelling at the people in the truck. So I assume she had got out first before I had taken notice. The guy (looked like he was in his late 50s early 60s) climbed out over the side, probably using the tire as a step since the truck was raised up real high. He was about 3/4 of the way out when the people in the truck just assumed he was out and clear of the truck. Being the morons that they are they just can't drive like normal people. They compensate with the truck, they have to also compensate with their driving. So instead of just a normal take off they think their hot shit and gun it for no logical reason. Luckily the guy wasn't hurt, just literally knocked him right out of his shoes and he was limping a little afterwards. Then they stopped and just sit there like a bunch of morons while the lady asked the guy if he was hurt and then started yelling at them and they just continued to sit there like a bunch of morons in the middle of the road with crazy busy traffic until the lady yelled at them to go on. I guess they were there for the truck pull, we saw them later driving in the grass again like a bunch of morons.
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