First fourth in Bigfork was a good one

At the time I thought it was a Snickers.

It came in a brown wrapper with blue writing on a white background, and judging from the heft of it when it hit me on the shoulder, it was a full-size bar. Of course, back at the office I had photo evidence of the kids who scrambled for the offending candy snack and the wrapper appeared to say Peanutopolis.

A quick Google search confirmed this to be some incredibly hard to spell advertising ploy by the makers of Snickers, so I was right, I had been beaned by a bar of peanuty goodness.

What's the point? The point is that I got hit by a flying Snickers bar, and that's the mark of a pretty fine day.

This was my first Fourth of July parade in Bigfork and my tiny adopted village lived up to its reputation as one of the most happening Independence Day spots in the state. There were more floats than I cared to count. So many, in fact, that despite being pretty sure I watched the entire parade, I completely missed a few of the winners (listed on page 8).

Downtown was packed, everyone was happy and — maybe best of all — it was one of those events where you could pretty much drop your camera on the sidewalk and still get a decent shot.

Despite the fun to be had in Bigfork on the fourth, I'll cop to watching fireworks across the water in Lakeside, where I couldn't help but think back on all the fireworks I've watched with my family in the tiny town of Lakeview, Ark., where we always spent the holiday.

With a population of just about 700, Lakeview puts on one of the most impressive fireworks shows you'll ever see, with a grand finale that would eclipse many shows' entirety. We'd sit on a bluff overlooking Bull Shoals Dam, and conveniently located under a mess of high voltage power lines (safety first!) and revel in 30 minutes of explosions so loud my siblings and I would practically have to yell to be heard once we were back in the car.

Of course, there's no danger of setting the world on fire in wet Northern Arkansas, and — somewhat inexplicably — southerners sometimes take their expressions of pyrotechnic patriotism more seriously than most.

All of this is to say that I missed taking in the festivities in my childhood locale, but Bigfork's celebration was impressive enough to make it a great day nonetheless.

And I hope that kid enjoyed his candy, it kinda hurt.

—Alex Strickland