Music & Fireworks

So, I've never been to an Independence day concert. In fact, I've only been to the actual "grounds" where the fireworks were being set off twice in my life-- once at the river in Evansville, and a few years ago in Lubbock. When I was growing up, my parents refused to go see the fireworks live at the high school, on the grounds that we could sit in our grandparents' front yard and see most of them.

This year, we decided to go have a look at them in person again. We went early, even though we weren't that interested in the concert, in the hopes of finding a parking space. As it was, we parked a mile away (no, seriously-- I run in that park all the time) from where we ended up sitting. But, it turned out that the concert was quite good! I didn't know either of the men who were the headliners, but they were fantastic. Of course, any concert that includes music from Hello, Dolly!, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, and Lord of the Rings is bound to be great in my book. And the Lubbock Youth Symphony Orchestra, who played all this music, was fantastic.

The fireworks were also good, and an added bonus (for me) was the live music that went along with it. The music & fireworks were timed to complement each other, and it went off almost perfectly. They started off with "Stars and Stripes Forever", always a good bet in my book, and we found out later that one of the girls from church was on the piccolo. Girl has got some skill.

The traffic going back home was pretty heavy-- after all, organisers were expecting 80,000-100,000 people, which is nearly half the population of Lubbock. The Lubbock PD were way on top of things with their traffic-directing skills, but even at that it took us 40 minutes to cover what is normally a 15-minute (if that) drive. Still, no complaints. It was fun.

In fact, since we had so much fun, I imagine we will be doing it again next year.