Friday, June 30, 2006
I felt like a storm tracker last night, of sorts. We had decided to go to the "big bang" fireworks last night. They are always on the opening of Summerfest at the lakefront. Well we drove on Lincoln Memorial Dr. right on the lake and it was packed with cars. We decided to head north to Shorewood's Atwater park, still on the lake, and stake out there. We brought our folding chairs and sat down with 15 min. to spare to wait for the fireworks. Come 10:30, we expected to see the fireworks. We ended up hearing the makings of a distant thunderstorm, or so we thought. We soon realized with a large group of others also there, that we had picked the wrong location. We were hearing the reverb of distant fireworks and not seeing a thing! We flew to our car and starting driving back to the lakefront downtown. We get there and every entrance was blocked by cops. We couldn't get close enough. Trees were blocking everywhere and Sierra saying, "I can't see them" every other second. Finally on our way out of the city after many twist and turns we saw the top half of the finale. Steve pulled over for 2 min., so Sierra at least saw some of them. Oh yeah! Now I remember why my parents only took me once to see these. The opening of Summerfest (music) is the biggest thing to hit Milwaukee in the summer. Mayhem!The fireworks were low and right over the Summerfest grounds, not shot over the lake. Too many people, too small a viewing area. Now if you were of the richer sort, Bartolotta (expensive nice Milwaukee chain of restaurants) catered a meal on top of a building on the Pier for like $80 during the fireworks. Something tells me I'll only be reading about it in the paper :). Well if we ever attempt it again, we'll probably station ourselves on the top of a parking garage to see it. Maybe another year to dull the memory will get us attempting it again. :)
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4 comments:
Ha-ha-ha! You got both Matt and I laughing as we pictured you guys sitting there at Atwater Beach waiting to see something happen. Next time, try the hill by the watertower - near our old apartment. You can see them just fine there.
After 2 years of horrible traffic and not getting close enough to downtown (one year I pulled over on the highway to see them and another year it took us an hour to drive 15 minutes to get home) we decided to watch them from a distance. Does Greenfield Park have any fireworks?
No fireworks at Greenfield Park. We normally watch New Berlin's from the Pick n Save parking lot on Moorland and National. We miss the ground displays, but get most of the rest of it and very little traffic.
Giggle, giggle.. you guys kill me. You have luck like me :) I am glad you got to see some anyway. Was Sierra ok with the little you got to see. I am sure that was the biggest concern....disappointing her. Our fireworks were a bust too. It rained for an hour...so we had all three kids going bizerk in the van. Then we waited for an hour for them to start. None ever went off..they must have cancelled. Bummer!
We ended up stationing in miller park on the 3rd and saw them being shot from the lakefront, but she was so tired that she slept in the car :). We finally all saw them in New Berlin on the 4th from the pick n save parking lot.
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