Noisy Fourth

We went to a friends house for dinner last night and I had planned on taking some pictures at the city's fireworks celebration. When dinner wound down, however, we were too tired and too late to really get set up for the display so we went home.

I didn't get any pictures (the one to the left is from the Stillwater, OK celebration two years ago) but it was a noisy night. Apparently, shooting off fireworks in the city limits is legal in Boise... because everyone was doing it. Once the sun went down, this place sounded like a war zone. There were bangs and snaps and thumps and thuds and whistles and screams from all directions.

From my front yard, I could see parts of at least four different larger displays (including the city's) and there were at least four, probably five, families on my street alone who were setting off their own private displays. This included the amusing idiots across the street. They were lighting devices that would flame and glow brightly, then burst forth in a short display of sparkles and bright, bouncing embers. They were lighting them, then throwing them into the street or sometimes throwing them so they would burst in mid-air. The amusing part about it was that I would see the sparkles from the fuse and almost always hear "ow" as they threw them.

In addition to the private displays on my street, there were enough others surrounding me that the noise was almost continuous once the sun went down. The banging and the popping and the glowing and the noisemaking went on well into the night. I was engulfed by the sounds of celebration for several hours after dark. It was a most wonderful experience.