the carnival is in town!

I'll tell you something, Lebanon does it's patriotic duty when it comes to celebrating the 4th of July. The entire town comes alive for a week long festival. Live music plays at the bandstand every night, teams of family relay race participants make their way to the park in matching brightly colored t-shirts, red white and blue decorated golf carts put along the streets, and from the open window of our 2nd story office we can hear the muffled sound of the carnival til late into the night. Compared to the usual quietness of our small town, the sound causes an excitement and kind of haunting all at the same time. The wind brings the sound in waves of silence, then screams, unintelligible shouts of carnival workers, and bursts of music as the rides begin, followed by more silence as the wind carries it away. I'd been aware of the carnival for an entire week without visiting. I'd seen the employee's campers from the road outside the park, and the tops of the tallest rides over the trees. But I hadn't gone in for an up close look until the 4th had come and gone. We rode our bikes down to the park on the 5th to see what we could see up close, and here are a few of the things we saw.