Holy Mackerel! For me, this might be the most celebratory week of the year. Look at all the choices. I probably should have spread the fun out over the course of several days, but I couldn’t help myself. I binged them all into one day of wild, crazy partying.

Perhaps the weirdest celebration this week is “‘Fish are Friends, Not Food’ Week.” In a way, I agree. Even though I’m a hard core carnivore, I sympathize with vegetarianism. And, despite what some people (Catholics) say, fish meat is still meat. I can enjoy a meal of fish meat almost anytime . . . but not today.

I rode down to the boat landing to see if there were any fishermen heading out onto the Mississippi River to try to catch tonight’s dinner, thereby ignoring the national holiday. Nope, not at this time. Good job fishermen!

But before I give the fishermen too much credit, even I know that 95-degrees with bright sunshine are not the ideal fishing conditions. That’s right, it’s the hottest day of the year so far. It’s not even the ideal biking conditions, but I wanted to be out there anyway. By the way, there was nice humidity too.

Next, I managed to capture two official celebrations in one picture: National Pollinator Week and National Insect Week. Let me tell you, it took a lot of patience waiting for the subject to sit still for a photo.