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Capital City Celebration

Montpelier, Vermont - July 3, 2009

Many communities celebrated the Fourth of July a little early. That includes Vermont's Capital City. There were events all day in Montpelier.

"The wonderful thing about Montpelier is that it is a community that likes to celebrate and come out and be together," said Diane Scolaro, the festival coordinator.

Montpelier is feeling patriotic; from decked out buildings with bunting to colorful clothing.

"And I have a patriotic umbrella and I wish all the troops the best of luck in Iraq and I hope they all make it home safe," said Debra Pelkey of Waterbury. She said she's also thinking about the latest deployment to Afghanistan. "Very much, I have a friend that is getting ready to be deployed out there."

Pearl Bugbee of Graniteville said, "You think about all the men who are serving now and we need to appreciate that and I guess our way of appreciating that is to take part in all the festivities they have going on... even in the rain!"

And rain it did; on and off all day.

It drenched everything but people were taking it all in stride.

"It's all Vermont!" Pelkey said. "Vermont is Vermont you can't predict the weather."

"It's just another day and we are going to hang in here," said Bill Bugbee of Graniteville.

"We have a full day of fun going on," Scolaro said. "And people will come out no matter the weather they will bring their ponchos, they'll bring their umbrellas and it will be up and down but it will be a great day. Our parade will be bigger than ever. We have more vendors than ever."

State Street was closed to traffic, lined with vendors selling food and sparkly fashion.

"It's a lot of fun. We have a great time with it," said Timothy Weller of Glow-ry Lites.

Hoping that a good attitude will rub off and help stop the rain.

"And it has to rain either on the third or Fourth, so we keep going. It's supposed to clear off by fireworks time so we'll see," Weller said.

Kristin Carlson - WCAX News