4th July celebrations

Wednesday
This evening we went to the “Red, White and Blue Ash” celebrations in Summit Park. Blue Ash is the community adjacent to ours, and Summit Park is a new, still developing park and community development on the ground of the former Blue Ash airport which closed in 2012. We have been to one of the restaurants there, but we haven’t explored the park more than that and hadn’t been to this event before - the park was really developed during the three and a half years we were in France. There have always been 4th July fireworks in Blue Ash, but this new area is so much bigger than their previous area, and it has developed into a huge regional event. We had our meal before we went, but there were numerous food tents - we did treat ourselves to a Graeter’s (well known local) ice cream! The event was very well organised, with various parking areas set up - in particular at University of Cincinnati’s northern campus, with a shuttle bus service to the park. We got there for about 8 pm, a little before the main act started - Pat Benatar. I’ve never particularly followed her, but I did recognize several of her songs - she looks pretty good for 65! The fireworks began about 10 pm and were amazing, with fireworks at times shooting out from the side of the observation tower shown in one of my shots. It had been yet another sweltering day, but fortunately had cooled somewhat. Whilst the shuttle bus worked well to get to the event, we decided to walk back rather than waiting with hundreds of other people! It took us about 30 minutes, amongst the crowds and carrying our folding chairs, and whilst we had felt comfortable in the heat sitting down, we were both quite sweaty by the time we got back to the car, and glad of the air conditioning!