Celebrating the 4th of July in Las Vegas

This evening JoAnn and I drove a little over a mile to an open gravel field and watched an arc of fireworks demonstrations covering 270 degrees of the compass. We live about 800 feet above the valley floor so we have a great view of most of the city and the strip. There are probably many cities where you can experience 270 degrees of fireworks, but from our perch we could see all of the Las Vegas strip and the many fireworks, plus those over in Henderson, almost 20 miles away, and many different casino and neighborhood fireworks. It seemed that in every direction we turned there were fireworks. They may not always be the most spectacular fireworks, but they were pretty darn good. There were probably 50 or more cars out in the gravel field with us. We don't worry about driving on the grass in Las Vegas. There isn't any!

And then it was home to catch the last few minutes of the Capitol Fourth PBS show (time delayed of course). What a spectacular fireworks show with the Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington monuments framed by fireworks, along with the U.S. Capitol. And then, as a bonus, they replayed the whole show and we got to watch it start to finish. What a great way to spend the 4th - Fireworks, good music, the National Mall, great patriotic music - I love John Philip Sousa's marches. We were blown away by Steve Martin and his bluegrass band.

We were a little far away for photos in Las Vegas, but I captured a couple of photos from the National Mall concert and fireworks, in HD!

We hope everyone had a joyous 4th of July and remembered what the day means to us as our day of liberty and that we honor those who served and those who gave their lives to create sustain our liberty for the last 235 years. This is a great country and it is blessed of God.