July 4th: They like their fireworks...

I am following up on my previous post, and that is regarding July 4th.  I will say this: Americans certainly love their independence day.  It is quite astounding to see the spectacle that is currently going on as I type.  I did not walk down to the beach to watch the fireworks as the weather was looking rather suspect.  So, I decided to see what I could from our living room window.  I actually forgot about it until I heard this muted popping sound while I was reading.  It didn't take long for me to then remember the 4th of July fireworks that must be occurring.

Now, when I looked out the window, I looked between the houses to the shores across the bay and saw many lights.  At first I was not accustomed to what I was seeing - there are a lot of red lights slowly blinking on high towers to warn aircraft.  But then I started to see the fireworks - they were going off EVERYWHERE.  There were big, professional-looking ones further inland and another at the point on the other side of the bay, and there were what must have been personal fireworks that people had bought (they definitely are able to purchase way better fireworks than we do here in Canada) going off all along the shore across the bay too.  No matter where I looked I could see fireworks exploding of various size and form.  The personal bought ones were definitely way better than the bottle rockets we seem to always see on our side of the border.  And, this went on for at least 45 minutes. Next time I'm going down with a video camera so that I have proof!

I do regret now not grabbing my headlamp and heading down to the beach to have an unobstructed 180+ degree view.  I thought that I was over the whole fireworks thing.  Michael and I got to watch fireworks every night that Stampede was on when we had our house in Calgary.  We'd sit on our deck and watch the fireworks go off for half an hour.  That's a lot of fireworks for the 4-5 years we lived in that house...

I wonder if anyone has calculated how much money is spent on fireworks in the USA for the 4th of July?  It would be interesting to see.  I bet that it is quite a significant amount.  I guess it's better for them to spend it on that rather than make sure that everyone in their society is in good health...