Now That's What I Call Fireworks

There's nothing like a forest fire to celebrate the birth of our country. The taller half and I drove over to the state park to watch the fireworks last night and ended up with a front row seat to an accidental fire in the brushy wetland area between the beach road and the lake.

We parked on the edge of the road where the spillway connects Lake Shelby and Little Lagoon. The area between the two is wetlands with very few tall pines left since Hurricane Ivan visited in 2004. Our view of the fireworks show was spectacular - they appeared to be coming right at us as the shells were fired from a barge anchored just offshore in the Gulf. As one really spectacular chrysanthemum shape faded, I pointed out a green flare slowly dropping to the ground. Probably someone over in the small beach houses on 1st or 2nd Avenue. Laughing, I commented that someone's car or yard would probably catch fire from it.

And catch fire it did. We noticed the smoke getting thicker and then we saw the flames a couple of hundred yards across the marsh from where we were parked. It was a real two-for-one show - fireworks above and roaring flames below. Firetrucks, park rangers and other emergency vehicles were coming past our vantage point and sirens could be heard across the water. We stayed to watch until the rangers started pulling out hoses and blocking traffic. We headed home then to listen to the police scanner and watch the southern horizon for smoke.

In this morning's paper, there was a small article saying that the fire was contained and allowed to burn itself out since it was in a wetland area and no homes were threatened. This link will take you to a compilation video of shots submitted to al.com http://videos.al.com/2008/07/gulf_state_park_fire_compilati.html.

Our video was taken from the northeastern side of the fire looking south toward the Gulf. The scenes in the al.com videos were taken from the south and southwest on the beach road and on the western side as seen from Highway 59. As the fire grew, the frogs and bugs around us in the marsh really tuned up. You can hear them along with sirens in the video.

Long Holiday Weekend Plans

I can't wait for 5 o'clock this evening - I'm off work until Monday morning. Huzzah! Tonight the taller half and I are going to the Tom Waits concert in Mobile. We've both been hoping to see him for years but his sporadic touring schedule never matched up with where we were. Tour info at http://tomwaits.com/

Big plans for tomorrow, too. We bought an invisible fence to put around the yard. Nervous red dog needs more exercise than her rapidly aging mama can provide so we're going to put in the fence and pray she doesn't fry her brains learning where the boundaries are. Working with the taller half to accomplish this may not be a good idea so I plan on strawbossing and providing cool adult beverages along with a running commentary. Should be interesting to say the least.

In our local paper this morning, my favorite food editor had a great column on barbeque. Check it out at blog.al.com/generous-portions/ He has some great tips from Steve Raichlen's Barbeque Bible www.barbecuebible.com/ This is my favorite book for grilling and bbq-ing info. I'm thinking baby back ribs, chicken, maybe some sausages...yum. The 4th of July barbeque was always a big deal at home when my brother and I were kids. Mama would wrap sliced potatoes and onions in tin foil, put in lots of butter and chives and a dash of cayenne. The package would cook alongside the ribs and smell heavenly. I loved the potatoes that would almost stick on the bottom - they were golden brown and crispy. I think those will definitely be on the menu this year. Daddy always made homemade ice cream in an old hand crank freezer. My brother and I would start off the cranking so energetically and tire almost immediately. Daddy wouldn't take over until the handle wouldn't turn even with both of us pulling on it. Watermelon frosty cold from the cooler, ice cream made with a real vanilla bean, ribs so tender you could pull the meat off the bone with your lips...now that was a 4th of July barbeque!

After the feasting, we'll head over to the state park to get a primo view of the city's fireworks show. Every year a barge anchors about 1/4 mile offshore from the public beach and fires a spectacular show out over the gulf. The traffic is horrendous so we try to park on the backroad around the lake so we can scoot out and get home before the rest of the people start playing bumper cars. There really isn't a bad seat anywhere along the beach road and lake road through the park.

Finally Saturday will get here and I can spend the day at my workbench. Hopefully, the taller half will go diving so I'll have the day to myself. I got some beautiful new opalite teardrops from http://gottacraft.etsy.com. I have several ideas for using them - can't wait to get started.

Barbeque, fireworks, crafting time - what more could a girl want or need?!

Happy 4th of July to you!