4th of July in Crested Butte

 Mount Crested Butte

Now this was an unexpected surprise. We went to Crested Butte to go to
the Farmers' Market, but stumbled on a parade along with thousands of
people.
I blame an insufficiently-maintained Chamber of Commerce website. I
did my research-I visited several different Crested Butte websites,
including the C of C one, and not one of them said anything about a
parade. I saw the pancake breakfast, the weekly Farmers' Market, and
the fireworks, but definitely not the parade. Now why is this a big
deal to me?
I really dislike crowds.
And as we neared Crested Butte, we saw that traffic was backed up on
the highway just to get into town. We finally figured it out when we
saw a sign directing parade floats to the starting area.
We found a parking place-not a bad one; and first made our way to the
market. We then went up Elk Avemue, the main street of Crested Butte,
which also just happened to be the parade route. Both sides of the
street were 3 to 5 people deep, and at least half of them had dogs.
(Don't get me wrong-I love dogs-but I've never seem so many in one
place at one time!). There was also a food court, with everything you
could want: barbecue, hot dogs and burgers, teriyaki chicken, falafel,
udon bowls, lamb kebabs and kibbe, Italian sausage, kettle corn,
roasted corn, turkey legs, and gyros. Don had a pork barbecue
sandwich, and I had a beef one.
We resumed our shopping after the parade was over, and then headed
back to the truck for the trip back to Taylor Park.
Our haul for the day: cherries, organic artisan raisin bread,
pastries, Keen shoes for me, a wide-brimmed fishing hat for Don, beer,
cheese, asparagus, crimini mushrooms, a new bead/gem for my watch, a
cheese grater, lemon-pepper seasoning, and a bottle of Mountain View
Winery (Olathe) Gewurztraminer.
We've noticed that many of the weekend campers have gone home. It's
really nice to be back in OUR home, where it's not wall-to-wall people.