Back from San Francisco

Our family is back in town after a few days up "north" in San Francisco and Sonoma County.  We were pursuing our family tradition of being in a different city each 4th of July.   I believe this tradition started when we just found ourselves several different  interesting places on the fourth, and just decided to keep things going as best we could.  Here's our list so far:

2001 - Morgantown, WV
2002 - Washington, D.C.
2003 - Antietam Battlefield
2005 - New York City
2006 - Oklahoma City
2007 - Boston
2009 - Fresno
2010 - San Francisco

As you can see there are a few gaps in the years, but we have managed to catch a few major shows.

#1 on our Firework Show list?  I personally would have to say Boston, because the display was coordinated with music that was speakered out everywhere.  Of course, listening to the Boston pops play part of the music helped the atmosphere a lot.  All of this despite the fact that it was raining.  See, here we are, waiting for the display to begin:

Of course, D.C. was also exciting, since we were sitting right on the mall area - and it was the first fourth after 9-11, so I think people were feeling especially patriotic.

Antietam was also a very nice show, and there were lots of places to sit on that big, wide battlefield.  We had some Czech friends with us that time, so it was neat to share July 4th with them.

New York City was okay, but we were just kind of standing out by the river with a bunch of people, and there was no music.  Here is a picture of us sitting who-knows-where on the ground.  I think I'm calling my parents in this picture, because I always try to "share" the moment.

Here are all the people sitting out there on the street with us:

I would have to unfortunately say that the San Francisco fireworks were not very high on the "Best Fireworks" list. That was because a)there was no music (at least that we could hear), and b)it was very foggy, so the best and highest fireworks just went up and made the fog a little - colorful.  However, we had a pretty good view (yes, that is Alcatraz), and we still managed to have fun:

The downside of travelling to different cities for the fourth?  You never know exactly where the best places are to sit, and you never have a blanket to sit on.  The upside?  It's always interesting, and you can learn a lot about a city by going to these kind of events.

I wonder where we'll go next year...