Independence Day, 2016

We have been in Seattle for a few days and for Independence Day we decided to take an side excursion to see Mt. Rainier, the tallest mountain in the continental United States. En route we spent the night in the small town of Enumclaw, the last town before entering the park.

The residents here are really, really into Independence Day. Or maybe they are really, really into fireworks. On the way into town we passed at least 5 tents along the road selling them. And where we were staying it seemed like there was a house on every block setting off fireworks- beautiful ones. There were both ground displays, and aerial displays. These were private parties at houses- for family and friends- maybe a dozen people watching at most.  I have no idea what fireworks cost but an hours worth of fireworks sounds expensive to me. And I didn't realize it was so easy to do; I thought it required special equipment to launch them into the air. But judging by the number of people doing it in Enumclaw, it must be relatively easy to do. 

One house near our hotel set off fireworks from six until 10- nice ones. They were the first to start so we walked over to watch. Since it wasn’t dark yet they started small, with ones that made noise then switched to ones I had never seen before- large balloons with candles inside. 

I was not expecting this so I didn’t have a camera with me, just a cell phone. These don’t take very good fireworks photos. Sorry for the blurry images.

We saw about 10 fireworks shows simultaneously within less than a mile. We were literally surrounded by aerial firework. Five fireworks displays were very close-- one was even in our hotel parking lot. 

Our hotel parking lot

As you can see there are only half a dozen people around. No crowds.

  Our hotel was right next door to the county fairgrounds. We sat on some large rocks on the edge of the fairgrounds and by turning around we could watch five different fireworks displays at the same time.

 There were two different groups setting off fireworks next door at the fairground. The most interesting thing about the evening was there didn't seem to be any crowds or audience for these shows except us, the people shooting them off, and their friends. There was literally no one at the fairgrounds next door to watch them. They just did it to please themselves. This photo was at the fairgrounds and as you can see there is no one around to watch the show except the us. Our own private fireworks show. 

Notice the parking lot at the fairgrounds is empty except for one truck and one family. No one watching except the guys setting them off and us.

Now- just a few more things about Enumclaw. We were staying in a rural part of town, as I said, next to the fairgrounds, on the road to Mt Rainier. There were two restaurants nearby, however both were closed. It turned out every restaurant in town was closed for the holiday. Rather than starve after our drive from Seattle I was planning to go to the next town, to Safeway and buy a frozen dinner to heat up in the microwave. Then the woman at the hotel desk called me- some guest had bought an extra pizza- would we like a free pizza? You know we would, so we had a large free pizza (still warm), outside on a picnic table, then watched all these great fireworks shows. A pretty good Independence Day celebration. 

Are you under 18? Please do not read further. 

 You see, there just one more thing. As I was writing this blog I was thinking Enumclaw is a rather unusual name and googled it to find out how the town got this name. The meaning of the name is a little uncertain, although it seems to be of Salish Indian origin. However, while looking it up I came across this small town’s only claim to fame. Apparently about a decade ago there was a horse farm (this is horse country) where a man died after having sex with a horse.