I don’t know about you, but I had an outstanding 4th of July this year. Yesterday (during the day) I went with some friends on their 4 person catamaran out on Kaneohe Bay and we sailed for about four hours. It was wonderful to be so close to the water, skimming along the surface almost like we were flying. (No photos because I didn’t want to get the camera wet.)

We beat the rain coming in from the water, and I headed home to shower and change and then go back to a cookout on the Navy base with some other friends. We had the traditional fare– hotdogs and burgers, corn on the cob and baked beans, watermelon and potato salad– and then walked down to the big field where the base was hosting it’s huge 4th of July celebration.

The field was full of people selling fair foods (I bought kettle corn!) and rides and bouncy houses for the kids, and earlier in the day there had been a petting zoo, pony rides, a classic car show, and other things, but the main attraction was the amphitheater they erected on one end of the field. At 8 o’clock, they brought out the main act– the Plain White T’s. I heard the start of the concert (which sounded pretty good) but we had a bunch of kids with our group so we wandered back to the place where we’d had the cookout.

At nine o’clock, the fireworks started and we had an amazing view; the people hosting the cookout are a couple that live near my friends, and the husband is a Coast Guard captain with a little boat in Pearl Harbor… so we sat on the bow of the boat and watched as the fireworks went off directly in front of us (though across the harbor). It was a fun show, and this year they had fireworks that even spelled “USA” in red, white, and blue.

I got home around 10:30, exhausted but happy. All in all, it was a good 4th of July. I also realized it’s one of my favorite holidays because of all the tradition and patriotism and history associated with it. Sometimes it’s nice to just be proud of our country and have some corn on the cob and watermelon. ^_^

The title of this entry refers to the fact that I wound up using a 4 second exposure to capture a lot of the fireworks, though there are several photos with shorter exposure. If you want to see more of them, click here or the “Read More” button. ^_^

The finale was, of course, the booming fireworks that you can feel in your chest. ^_^