Published: July 04, 2009 09:08 pm         

Inclement weather dampens holiday festivities in Wabash Valley

SULLIVAN — Rain drizzled onto the empty parking lot pavement as Tabatha Myers prepared lemon shake-ups for no one.

“Slow,” she said from behind the counter of Katie’s Concessions food stand, parked near the water at Sullivan Park and Lake on Saturday afternoon.

Myers and other vendors at the campgrounds muddled through a soggy Fourth of July as rain drenched the Wabash Valley.

Hundreds of campers and RVs lined the grounds, but families huddled under awnings and around camp fires as cool, damp weather fizzled planned festivities.

“Windy, rainy and cold,” Imogen Anderson, 5, said as her sister, Nakea, 3, sat with a blanket wrapped around her under a park shelter next to an empty playground.

The girls’ grandmother, Boni Dye, their mother, Casey Anderson, and the rest of family had staked out the shelter and were grilling chicken breasts and hot dogs smeared with BBQ sauce and were rolling balls out of fresh watermelon halves.

“We’re just hanging out at the lake,” Dye said, still optimistic at 1 p.m. that fireworks might be in store by the evening. “But we have some back-up sparklers just in case.”

But as grill smoke disappeared into the misty air, Dye said they were going to have fun regardless of the weather. The girls had been playing Frisbee in the rain earlier, and as long as they were under shelters or awnings of RVs, it was still fun.

“It’s just nice getting out of the house,” she said, adding that they’d been spending time with friends at other campsites there that day.

Meanwhile, a handful of children paddled through the lake as raindrops fell. No thunder or lightning were evidenced at the time, so the kids splashed away.

“It’s a little wet,” Libby Newell shrugged, dipping her feet into the lake.

Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com