Happy Birthday, U S of A

Intrigued by a report of buried fireworks in Santa Cruz, Megan and I headed down to Seabright Beach to take in the lawless Fourth of July festivities. Apparently fireworks are illegal in Santa Cruz, but every year the amateur fireworks enthusiasts of the greater Santa Cruz area put on a show on the beach. We had heard that some people bury stashes of fireworks on the beach in advance, so that when they show up on the evening of, police won't find anything on them. Then they can go dig them up and ignite to their little hearts' content. Yay America!

We showed up at 8:00PM, and the beach was already teeming with people. Police had set up barricades and were "patrolling" multiple entrances to the beach. The inspection simply consisted of "you're not packing fireworks, are you?" This made it funnier that just a hundred feet over, people with odd lumpy packages pretty much dropped themselves down the vertical face of a cliff onto the beach below so as to avoid inspection. Yay America!

As the darkness settled in, the whole beach erupted in an airborne fireworks show. It was crazy. Crazy fun, but scary at times. Some fireworks shot off horizontally, loud booms came from all directions, and Cliff even got hit with a clump of something in the shoulder. At times it looked like burning embers were going to fall down directly on top of us. We'd see a flash, then hear a boom followed by shrieks of glee. I half expected the screams of delight to turn into screams of pain, and to see bloodied figures stumbling down the beach, but it seems like no one got hurt. I was impressed with the quality of fireworks these people had. Seemed like they had raided Disneyland or something. And they either dug huge holes on the beach, or packed in a ton, in order to put on the show that they did. Two hours later (yeah, a two hour fireworks show), we left, with the fireworks visibly thinned out and slowed down, but still going. Definitely the craziest fireworks show I've ever been to. It could be fun to come back though. Yay America!