The Best Fireworks!

There's no doubt about it: We have the best Fourth of July fireworks right here in the nation's capital.
And the best place to see the best fireworks is at the Lincoln Memorial where the colorful and noisy choreography bursts almost overhead!
My wife and I braved the crowds and the security last night because we hadn't seen this show in several years and we knew what we'd been missing.
We weren't disappointed.
While the show was creative and frequently surprising, much of the experience is the setting on the National Mall: sitting in front of Abe Lincoln, looking at the Washington Monument, with each display bursting over the Reflecting Pool, while also having the U.S. Capitol in view.
(A long time ago, my newspaper sent me to its Washington Bureau. I arrived at night and as I turned a corner at my hotel near the White House, the sight of the lit up U.S. Capitol at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue took my breath away! I've always liked the Capitol. It's literally a working monument to our representative government.)
When we had kids still in our household, we celebrated July 4 by packing a picnic, maybe even a small grill, going early onto Ohio Drive along the Potomac River not far from the Lincoln Memorial, and spending the day there. We'd throw a frisby and maybe hike up to the Jefferson Memorial and back, and maybe watch a pick-up softball game on the grass between Ohio Drive and Independence Avenue.
And at dusk, we'd walk over to the Lincoln Memorial and stake out our place facing the Washington Monument. It would get quit crowded, but everyone was doing the same thing and we seemed to make new friends (which we wouldn't see again) as we talked and waited for what we all knew would be the best fireworks anywhere. (Even once in the rain we weren't disappointed.)
One July 4th, we went to New York, and seeing the fireworks over the Statue of Liberty was quite a treat, but they weren't nearly as close as bursting over the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.
We're also fortunate to have several very good fireworks displays annually right here in Northern Virginia and we have seen most of these in years when we didn't really want to brave the traffic and the crowds and the metro.
But last night reminded us that the fireworks on the Mall are worth the hassle -- even with the security put in place after 9/11!
Yesterday, our picnic spot along the Potomac of years ago was closed off. So were the parking places we had used before on the Virginia side of Memorial Bridge. But with planning, and the help of the map of road closures in The Washington Post, we managed to plan our trip and we weren't disappointed.
Those overhead bursts of sound and light seemed wonderfully to go on and on and on! The show was wonderfully creative and it lived up to, and exceed, all our memories of earlier fireworks there.
We saw the best Independence Day fireworks anywhere!

-- martin casey