4th of July/ Day 31

It's the 4th of July. That means it's time to pack as many festivities and explosives, as is humanly possible, into one day of crazy awesome fun.

My day was supposed to start with a walk/run this morning, but I couldn't quite find the motivation to subject myself to that kind of torture at 8am. So instead, my day started with Greg walking into my room and throwing an orange at my face. Thankfully, my arm deflected the flying fruit.

It was about lunch time and the races started in about an hour, so it was time to get up, do my devotionals, and get some food. Just as I had finished with everything, Greg met us back at our place and Greg, Scott, Jonny, Stephen, and I caravaned out to the mud race track.

We got there right at 1pm, but since everything is on Indian time out here, the races didn't actually start until 2:30pm. Once they started up, it was super sweet! Each driver would take their truck would go as fast as it they could around a figure 8 course that had random holes filled with water throughout. Greg had a friend that was racing too, so that was pretty awesome. The excitement gets to you when you're rooting for a specific driver.

After the races, there was a mud tug-of-war "tournament". I kind of thought it would be cool to go down there and try it, but they were asking for teams of five and a $10 entrance fee. We only had four people in our group, 'cause Stephen had left, and we didn't have $10 cash.

But just as I had dismissed the idea, a random guy came by yelling something like "We need a couple extra guys! Come on! Let's go sign up!" They were pointing at Jonny and I. I hesitated for a second, but they didn't need to tell me twice. This would be an experience.

Jonny hesitated for a couple seconds longer than I did, but he joined us as well. We grabbed another guy as we walked down to the track, and we were ready to rock. They made me the team captain for some reason, so I had to go up to a captains meeting quick. I looked at all the other captains and most of them seemed like pretty large guys. We would have to fight like mad to win this thing.

We went over strategy quickly, before they called the two team captains for the first round of tug-of-war. It was my team against the log homes boys (they're huge). I won the coin toss, and we picked the far side of the bank. It was truly a bank, because we were fighting to pull each other into a mud pit that was just the right consistency of mud and water to make it a truly distasteful experience for anyone who fell in.

It was pretty muddy and therefore slippery, but we were going to fight as hard as we could. One of the "officials" was giving me advice telling me to release then pull as one team to catch the boys on the other side off balance and win this thing.

When we started, I expected to immediately be tossed into the muddy water, but we actually held our own! And we were about to win the thing, until something went wrong. We quickly started losing ground and I started screaming "Pull! Pull! Pull!" It was useless. Before I knew it, I was headlong in the sea of mud. What happened?

I pulled myself out of the goop, and immediately I saw one of my teammates on the ground. Some people were standing around him and he looked like he was in pain. He told me he popped his knee out of socket right before we were about to win. Without him, we definitely outnumbered by the other guys, hence the reason I was covered from head to toe in mud. So that's what happened. We helped him back to the side of the track so another team could battle it out, and he told us he would be fine.

I spent the next hour or so trying to wash off-- though I spend more time waiting in line than washing. The mud was everywhere and I really didn't want it to get all over my car. I washed off the best I could and made my way back to the side of the track.

After I washed off, we spent a couple minutes watching some guys try to jump another mud trench with their trucks and ATV's for money, but nobody made it. It was almost time for the cookout in SF, so Jonny and I took off. When we got back to our place, I took a shower quickly to clean all mud off me, then we loaded up our vehicles and headed to SF for the cookout!


Our time in SF was amazing! I got to spend time talking with Karen, who I only knew a little bit because she is the grandma of some of the kids I know in SF, so that was awesome. Then there was the food! Hot dogs, brats, hamburgers, barbecue chicken, and steak; chips, pickles, pasta salad, baked beans with bacon, potato salad, and cookies/donuts as well! Oh my gosh. It was sooo good. 


After dinner, we made our own fireworks show. Karen had bought a ton of fireworks for her grandkids so we spent quite some time setting all of those off. It was pretty awesome just hanging out and lighting fireworks in the street. Especially because fireworks that shoot into the air are legal in SD, so I would venture to say that our show was even better than a "professional" one. At least it was more fun. 


We hung out at Karen's until after midnight, then we decided we should get back so some of us could get some sleep. Greg and I had a pretty awesome conversation about business on the way back, then it was time for bed. 


Tannerite tomorrow with Greg and the gang. And I have the day off from work! It should be a good day. Thanks for all your support!


God Bless,
Brenden



Things I learned today:
1. Never turn down the opportunity to do something crazy.
2. Having your own fireworks show with friends and family is way more legit than going to watch a "professional" show at the Rosebud Casino.
3. Acts 8.