Fourth of July! One of our favorite days here in Paradise…and one we always spend on the beach. Fireworks, food, great weather…you can’t beat it!
Venice sends fireworks up from a barge in the jetty (making the beach an ideal place to watch). But as an added bonus, three other communities further up the beach (looking north) use their beaches for fireworks too. So while our main show is going on, three others are going in the background. It’s pretty cool!
Paris was prepped and ready to go! Check out her tattoos –
Things start heating up as sunset approaches. The crowd starts building…
…and the ever-present drum circle gets freakier and freakier…
…oh yeah. You gotta stay upwind of these folks or you end up getting just as whacked as they are…
Patriotic spirits are high…
And we’re getting close to sunset…about 40 minutes maybe? The sun is hiding on us…
…while Paris entertains herself while waiting for the show to start.
And then…
Boom!
Check it out!
The show was great (as usual), but the interesting part of the night always revolves around the “resident-fired” fireworks. Fireworks are legal in Florida, and the beach gets pretty smoky from all the lunatics trying to blow their damn fingers off. We saw geniuses lighting entire boxes of sparklers (while pointing them at their little kids and shouting “hey! look!”). More candidates for the Darwin Awards aiming roman candles at their pre-adoloescent offspring…you name it, and we saw it.
Sanity prevails in some parts, though. Some folks take their boats into the intercoastal and set up their own show with their own barge-like platform. Rivalries develop between boaters, and as we walk to our car after the show, we get another show that looks and feels like a war zone. Call it “local-flavor”…
The day was a success! Stephanie is visiting with us for the weekend, so we enjoyed good company. We had some barbeque before hitting the beach (the kind somebody smokes for days on end…not the one in the backyard)…Cameron, where were you? The drum circle girls were looking for Kristin…all in all it was a momentous day.
Oh, and it’s also Peter’s birthday! Happy Birthday Peter!