Bring your Asbestos Suit

You forget, when you live in a big city (or even a big-ish town like Princeton, NJ) that small-towns don't follow the same rules as cities. Take safety, for example.

On July 3 we trekked up to Land O' Lakes to see the annual fireworks. These are a northwoods institution. People come from hundreds of miles around to watch the biggest fireworks show in the north every year. Walking around the parking lot, Daryl and I counted license plates from as far away as Texas and Arizona, not to mention many from Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa.

This is a show.

And I'm not just talking about the fireworks.

Between the school bus full of exceedingly drunk people (hey, at least they aren't driving! wait... aren't those my parents' tax dollars at work?) that arrives by bouncing across the airport runways (did I mention that this takes place at the airport and that we all get to DRIVE on the runways?) to the tailgating to the gangsta rock playing out of several sketchy pickup trucks, this was an experience to be remembered.

We gathered with some great family friends to eat and laugh as dusk fell. Then, the show began.

Several people had commented that it was really windy. As in: REALLY. WINDY.

Someone else commented offhandedly that the wind was blowing toward us from where the fireworks would be set off. Hmmm. Interesting.

As the first firework set off in the sky, I was laying on a picnic blanket with my husband, my youngest sister, and my good friend Tonia.

"Ooooh!" we said.

"Aaaah!" we said.

"OUCH!" we said.

"OH MY GOSH, IT'S RAINING FIRE!" we said.

And then we sprinted to the car and watched the show from the trunk while my dad screamed, "Incoming!"

People sat out on their picnic blankets watching the rain of fire and swatting lazily at pieces of flaming cardboard as it rained down in sheets. It burned holes in our camping chairs. It burned people's blankets. It went on and on and on and no one else was even fazed by the fire from the sky. People put their children up on their shoulders to see better.

In the end the fire department only had to put out one medium-sized fire near the woods. Everyone else survived with just minor shrapnel damage...

"This," said Daryl, "is why I live in the city. We have rules."

It was a pretty awesome show, though. I'm not gonna lie...

Happy July, everyone!