Canada Day & The Aftermath in pictures

Holy cow… IT’S JULY, you guys!!!!

Anyone who has been following my blog for any length of time knows how much I love Canada Day.  Our little town celebrates big the day before, with a BBQ, parade, flag raising ceremony, entertainment for the kids at the park, a huge legendary fireworks display at dusk, and a party that goes on pretty much all night long.  I’m so proud of our committee for pulling off yet another legendary Canada Day in Quyon, and so thankful to everyone who came out to celebrate with us!

Here are some of the pics from this year’s festivities…

Our Committee always ends the parade by carrying our massive flag through town to the pole for the flag raising ceremony

Gives me goosebumps seeing it go up the pole and waving in the wind!

I think we say it every year, but… best fireworks everrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Ricky, Brenda, Sue & Wayne working the bar

I just loved Lynn’s vintage chapeau!!!

Good times…

Good friends…

Good people!!

When the band packs up and vacates the stage, that just means more room for dancing. ;)

Morgan, Mitchel and Hollie in the Shooter Station

With two of my besties, Sue & Brenda

Celebratin’!!!

With my Godson – and one of my all-round fave dudes – Cowan :)

The next morning at clean-up, Brenda, Sue & I discovered something rather interesting in the men’s washroom…

Yes. Those are inspirational messages on the wall above the urinals.  There are no such inspirational messages in the women’s washroom.  We are confused.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!

On Canada Day in the afternoon, our area fell under a tornado watch.  I admit that I didn’t pay much attention to the reports.  In the past few years, we’ve had several tornado warnings during the summers and it never ends up resulting in much.  I’ve always chalked it up to weathermen and their hype.  I don’t ever remember hearing tornado warnings around here all my life, but suddenly in the past few years, they like to scare us with them.

But this time, it would appear they knew what they were talking about.  After the storm hit, my Facebook & Twitter feeds were full of reports and photos of damage done by the crazy wind storm.  In town we were spared, but there was all kinds of damage done to properties between Quyon and Luskville.  We went for a tour to see it for ourselves after supper, and ended up down near my cousin Donna’s.  We went just to turn in their yard, only to discover their place was one of the hardest hit:

Their camper trailer flipped over at least 70 ft. from where it had been parked

A tree landed on the truck

Almost all of the trees on the property were damaged and mangled.  Fortunately, the house was mostly left unscathed.

This is a piece of tin off their neighbour’s barn.  The whole roof was gone from the barn.

There were lots of cottages badly beaten up along the river, and we passed another home that had its barn completely flattened.  We even saw a canoe up in a tree in one spot.  Many areas are still without power.  They’re now saying it was not a tornado, but a microburst – if that wasn’t a tornado, I don’t want to see what one of them would do!!  It was pretty crazy.

The good news is that there were no injuries reported, thank God!

As if the storm weren’t enough…this is what happened to the highway near our town yesterday morning:

Yep.  You’re seeing things correctly.  That is a massive sinkhole on the main highway leading into our town.  Due to the heavy rain storms we’ve had in the past few weeks, it completely washed out.  This isn’t the first time this has happened in recent years.  This time, however, it’s in a spot where there are no nearby roads to detour on.  The highway was closed and the many folks who live in our area and commute to the city for work had to take crazy-long alternate routes home.  It was just no fun for anyone.

Again…thankful no one was injured.  It sends shivers down my spine to think of the people who crossed over that part of the highway on their way to work in the morning.  It’s right near the ball park in Luskville, and that’s where my mom and I turned around on our ventures the night before.  Eeeek!!

So…to say the past few days have been eventful would be a bit of an understatement!!  I just hope the bad luck for the people around here is over, as it sure has put a damper on the celebratory feel we had going just a few short days ago!