Well, the 4th of July was the first time in nearly a month with no rain!!! That's all the announcers could talk about----the beautiful weather. Perfect temps with relatively low humidity and except for a few puffy clouds it really was a terrific day. I had bought tickets for us to go to the Community Boating dock so we could sit on a sailboat and watch the fireworks with no interference from trees, etc. Well, we took the T down and after walking around the boating dock we discovered we would be in back of the shell and not able to see or probably not even hear the concert. Chalked the experience up to be newbies and trudged over to the Esplanade to see if we could find a spot to camp out. People spend the night so they can be the first ones on the site and get the best spots. By 2 in the afternoon it was pretty darned crowded but we decided we'd rather see the show than sit 6 hours and only get to see the fireworks.
It's really cool as everything is free (except the food). So we got in to the oval, had our wristbands and actually ended up on the ground in a shady spot. Not to mention that 11 portapotties were right behind us and the slamming of the doors sounded like a continuous chorus of "wacko mole" . But the fact that there was a tree to rest our backs and shade....well, we were fine!! .
For my benefit here are some of the sights around the esplanade
This is a statue of metal plates of Arthur Fiedler, who was the all time director of the Pops
This is Jack and Lisa the main news anchors for WBZ and their live "studio" was right next to us. We were so thrilled to spend the day with a half million of our best friends.....didn't we become best friends with that many people crammed into such small space??? Of course the big draw was Neil Diamond who still puts on a good show. The very favorite song is "Sweet Caroline" which is THE song of the Boston Red Sox and I think they sing it at every game!!! I'm putting the video on but don't watch it if you get sea sick. I couldn'[t keep the video still enough on the close ups so it's very rocky!!!
As it turned out we didn't even see the fireworks. Smart idea we had: thought we'd leave right after Sweet Caroline and beat the crowd to the T. It was about a mile walk but after standing for hours (who thinks to bring lawn chairs on a mission??) we wanted to hobble quickly out of the crowds. For some reason, the streets were blocked and the police kept the barricades up and locked. Who knows why but it was very irritating to everyone that was smashed onto the walk of a side street and we couldn't even breathe!!! We were behind trees and a huge retaining wall and could only see the explosions high up in the air. Well, imagine 300,000 people (at least) heading for the T and wanting to get home at 11:30 at night....then it was more standing to wait and get in the station and more standing in the trains. But, we did it and glad we did....but in the future we would probably watch the festivities at home........most of the crowd were young adults and middle aged people. Very few kids and old people (like us)!!!! I guess if I had chairs and could get there mid day and sit in my chair, under my umbrella, and read, it would be fine. Great people watching. I think it's the getting home that was the biggest problem.

So we celebrated in Boston style and had a great time. By the time we hit the sac at 1 am we knew we had celebrated!!!! Back to work today as we headed to New Hampshire to visit a ward. It was unusual in that there were VERY few musicians. They even came and asked me if I played the piano...which I did in Relief Society!! First time in almost a year I've played and I sure noticed it!! Now we look forward to.......oh NOOOOOOOOOO...it's supposed to rain Tuesday thru Thursday!!! But Friday is the one day of sun which is good as it is our trip to see the Tall Ships in the Boston Harbor. Looking forward to that. Fun, or what???!!!!!

I add this picture so we can see where we were for the festivities. Look in the upper right hand square and you'll see a white semi circle. That's the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade...right there on the river!!