Happy 4th of July, on the 3rd of July

Boston is an amazing place to celebrate the 4th of July. This year Hurricane Arthur was brewing on the southern portion of the east coast and to avoid the heavy thunderstorms that were forecast to hit Boston on the fourth the city decided to move the show to the third. Good thing they did too, because the 4th turned out to be the rainiest, most non-outdoor compliant day ever. So we headed into the city after work on Thursday the 3rd of July with some friends to view the fireworks from Memorial Drive in Cambridge with a great view of the city skyline across the Charles River.

Celebrating the 4th with Dan and Olga Almeida and Mary Egan

This picture gives you a sense of how many people turn out for the fireworks. And this is only one side of the river!

This was our second year seeing the Boston fireworks and they were amazing again! We regret not having our tripod with us, our pictures of the fireworks would have turned out better. But you get the gist of how awesome they are shooting over the water and the city.

After a grand yet shortened finale, the fireworks came to an abrupt end. A public announcer said that the state police were ordering an evacuation of the area (which we later found out was weather related). We weren't in a hurry to wait in line at the train station so we took our time packing up. As we started walking to the subway station the winds picked up and within a ten second time period it went from no rain to full on downpour. Picture the scene from Jumanji where the house turns into a typhoon and that's pretty much us on the streets of Cambridge. We were SOAKED within seconds and scrambling to cover our cameras and phones. At some point Jeff said, "the hurricane is here!" and it really felt like it. We passed people huddling under every awning or doorway in sight and there was nowhere to take cover. When we made it to the subway people were lined up all the way out of the station doors and not moving at all. We just had to laugh with the dripping strangers around us as we all said, "well we can't get any wetter, might as well walk home".

So that makes us two for two on getting rained on at the Boston fireworks. But it's been fun both times! We didn't get struck by lightning or falling trees luckily and we made it home safely. I mean if you're going to get wet, you might as well get hurricaned on. Makes for a better story.