Best & Worst 4th

Traditionally I don't do much for Independence Day since living in New Orleans. I have never felt the urge to fight the crowds and parking nightmare that would be going downtown to see the fireworks. Nothing about that is appealing. This year's adventure provided both my best and my worst experience thus far. Let's start with the worst shall we...

In an effort to see the explosions but avoid the headache, Sara and I thought that maybe going up on the levy near her house would be a good idea. Her brother and sister-in-law were to meet us there where we could watch from a crowd-free, peaceful area. Well, the crowd-free part was right, there was no one there, perhaps indicating that this was not a desirable place to see anything. As we walked along the trail closer to where we thought we would have a better vantage point we were suddenly swarmed with mosquitoes. SWARMED. In our hair, all over us, one went in my mouth for goodness sake! We quickly made our way back towards the starting point of the trail that had not had so many of these devil bugs, swatting the whole way. Curtis and Jackie showed up as we were making our way back to my car where we hopped inside and proceed to smack and squish as many blood suckers as possible. Sara called Curtis, who was now parked beside us and probably thought we were being idiots, and explained the situation. Thank God I put bug spray on before leaving the house! I definitely received my fair share of bites, but I can only imagine how much worse it could have been. Geez!!! 

Now for the best part: We ended up running from my car to his, only bringing half a dozen mosquitoes with us, with the brilliant plan to drive to a parking garage on Tulane's campus. The dueling barge light show that occurs on the river downtown started a few minutes before we made it to the top, but we finally got there and stood amongst a small crowd of mainly college students to watch. From up top you could see other sets of fireworks going off around the area, out by the lake, over in Metairie, etc. I saw more fireworks from up there than I have seen in my five years in NOLA combined. Not too crowded, parking was easy, there was a breeze by being up above most everything else; it was very nice!

So there you have it, my best and worst 4th of July to date. Attacked by hundreds of mosquitoes before making it to a spot where we could see dozens of fireworks shows around the city!