-Wednesday July 4th (Cont.)-
Beth wondered in an email to us several weeks prior to our visit as to why we would want to go to her parents 4th of July cookout as there would be nothing but rednecks there. I don’t know, everyone we met there seemed perfectly normal to us. Maybe, as Jeff Foxworthy would (did) say, “You might be a redneck if you are surrounded by rednecks and don’t notice.”
The food was the usual fare for a cookout, hot dogs, chicken and a plethora of side dishes found anywhere you find people eating outdoors. There was one unusual thing that did set this gathering apart from any other cookout I had attended – Slug Races.
Slugs are the Official Gastropod of the state of Washington and they are everywhere, so it makes it easy to round up a racer. An official race course consists of a set of concentric circles marked off on a white surface. The smaller circle is the starting area and the larger circle is the finish line. The distance between the two is directly proportional to the patience of the race jockeys.
In the photo above the slugs from left to right are exactly in the order of their finishes. Nephew James’ slug, Slimy Speedster, was the winner, my slug, Galloping Gastro, placed a distant second and Donna’s Movin’ Mollusc showed in third. The other two contestants never left the starting gate.
We finished the day off back just up the street from Scott and Beth’s house at their church where we made s’mores and watched the night sky explode with light. Because they live on a small ridge that overlooks the Snohomish River Valley we got to see thousands, of bursts of light from right next door, to the glut exploding over the Tulalip reservation to the massive show over the town of Everett.