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By Brian McConchie

MANITOU SPRINGS, CO - The July Fourth holiday  is a little different in Manitou Springs this year. No fireworks. No big celebrations. Just a simple children's parade snaking through the streets marking the holiday and applauding the efforts of fire crews.

It's a welcome return to normalcy for Benjamin Harvey and his family. He was evacuated from his home in the early days of the Waldo Canyon Fire, but suffered no damage.

"We're starting to get there. We're starting to get more optimism," said Harvey. "Taking a few more breaths. A little sigh of relief."

"I was like 'Okay, let's go and try to pretend that everything's okay.' And it will be," said Harvey's wife, Che Freeman.

Signs of that filled the streets of the tourist destination Wednesday for the first time since the fire started. People were eating at restaurants, shopping in stores and cramming the streets. It was a much different scene than just a week ago when Manitou Springs turned into a virtual ghost town in the evacuation stage of the disaster, driving away the dollars that are the lifeblood of the area.

Local hotel owner Julie Vance was set up downtown selling t-shirts and taking donations from visitors to help raise marketing dollars for the Manitou Chamber of Commerce in the wake of the fire.

"The lodging properties are suffering quite a bit because a lot of our summer reservations have cancelled," said Vance. "Unfortunately, some of the information that has gotten out is, I wouldn't say misleading, but scary."

And while those frightening images won't leave anyone's minds any time soon, July Fourth was a welcome time to put them on hold for at least a few hours.

"We're trying to bond together and live in the spirit (of the holidy) and just have that sense that it's going to be okay. That it's going to be alright," said Harvey.

And that's something that the community hopes comes sooner as opposed to later.