Flying and fireworks on the 4th

After a slow start this morning Sarah and I covered ourselves in sunscreen and silly hats and headed for the party. The Tacoma Freedom Fair, that is. We took the path from nearby Proctor Street down the the Puget Gardens Park to get down to where the action was happening on Ruston Way. The trail leads down a steep ravine face and into lush forest. Near the trails end Puget Creek issues forth from a spring at the bottom of the hillside and gurgles and burbles before nearly immediately heading out to sea. We met Angela and Steve right after we got to the shoreline and walked with them for the afternoon. We paused for a while to catch some aerobatics over the water, to listen to a little girl try out to sing the National Anthem for a Seahawks game (she was awful!), to watch some RC cars race, to cheer on some dragonboat racers, to eat some food, to catch some shade, see a couple tall ships, some classic cars, and to watch some pole vaulters. The weather today was perfect and made for a really nice afternoon. Once our feet grew pretty tired along with our tolerance for booth after booth of useless crap, we headed home to relax for a bit.

After staying up a bit late last night, Sarah and I grappled with whether or not we would stay up late tonight to see the Freedom Fair's fireworks display over Commencement Bay. After a couple hours I finally decided to hop on my bike and ride six blocks or so to the top of another nearby ravine where earlier we saw a couple Honey Buckets setup in anticipation for a crowd of viewers. Sure enough, when I rounded the bend on Stevens Street there were cars and blankets parked to view the display. I found a good spot, setup my tripod, then gave Sarah a call to have her come join me. Although I only arrived an hour or so before showtime I got a spot right at the fence and just before everybody came.

Just before the show started a woman complained to me about my standing to take pictures. She actually tried to make me justify my actions by asking if I was with the newspaper or something. Although I sympathized I also had no problem telling her if she'd been in her place so long, why didn't she take the spot I had right at the fence where no one would get in my way. Without a response and with the support of some other nearby folks, I took my position (slightly crouching out of partial consideration for the nice lady) and snapped away while the fireworks shot up over a hillside nearby.

It's been a long, tiring weekend but Sarah and I made some progress around the house as well as in enjoying ourselves with friends on a beautiful Fourth of July weekend.

Comments (4) | To Top

7/5/2005 @ 9:58pm

Kevin,
I see you have improved your firework picture taking abilities. I'll have to pick your brain on some of the settings you used. It was very nice spending the day with you guy's, hope to get together soon.

Steve

by Steve

7/5/2005 @ 10:28pm

Got a couple decent ones in there. We'll have to catch another post-Rainier's game show to practice some more. If you notice, however, I still couldn't get away from having trees silhouetted in the foreground of the shot! Guess it adds some kind of visual interest or some junk like that. ;)

by KevinFreitas

7/6/2005 @ 7:49am

Another nice set of pics. You are getting good at timing. Thanks for letting me enjoy your fireworks since I didn't see much down here.

by Sherry

7/6/2005 @ 2:58pm

Those pics are GORGEOUS!

by Dave