Watching the Fourth of July Fireworks from Hope, Idaho
by MeylaB on 07/17/08 at 9:21 pm
Watching fireworks from Sandpoint’s City Beach, packed shoulder to shoulder with other revelers can be fun. You get to hear everybody else’s oohs and aahs and you can walk over the foot bridge with all your newfound pals carrying your stuff when it’s all over. If you’re looking for another type of pyrotechnic display, check out the City of Hope’s display next July 4 — it blows all the others away!
Just go about 18 miles North of Sandpoint on Highway 200. You can watch from several locations. Some park their cars along the side of Highway 200 before dusk and set up camp by their vehicles. Many arrangements are elaborate affairs with Barcolounger-style chairs, pets, blankets and what look like fruity tropical drinks. Others venture onto the docks of neighboring marinas or onto private boats in the water. Hope Marine is good, especially at the Floating Restaurant, known locally as The Floater.
We may have had the best seats of all at The Mary Ellen at Hope Marine. This mahogany-lined, craftsman-built houseboat stays moored at Hope Marine but is rentable every summer weekend. Visit the Mary Ellen at www.themaryellen.com for more information.
This year, the show lasted about 25 minutes. Included in the show were what I like to call foxtail streamers, big boomers and all sorts of other, colorful fireworks. One of my favorite types explodes into a bunch of tiny ones that swarm erratically like bees in the sky for about 30 seconds. A friend coined another variety “puff daddies” for their tendency to explode into white glitter, then explode again unexpectedly.
One of the best aspects of the Hope fireworks show is how the sound of the explosions is magnified by the natural topography. For every boom coming out of the fireworks tube, you get three more, successively louder, echoing off the mountains and then inside your chest. It’s a thrilling visceral jolt you just don’t get at the City Beach.
The finale was spectacular, with colors and shapes that impressed us all and made us wonder just how the heck they make those things. Glittery showers rained down from the sky at intervals while tall shooters streaked up in Vs and fell down again. Did they fall into the boats below? It sure looked like some boaters might have been stomping embers!
While all of this was going on, we also enjoyed the serene picture of about twelve Canadian geese swimming in a line, their silhouettes illuminated by the pink fireworks behind them. Not especially disturbed, they simply moved on to calmer waters, away from the crazy Americans.
Just think of all the city folks watching fireworks on TV, detached from the real thing, or restricted by laws that ban fireworks. Next year, make your Independence Day as real as it gets at the Hope fireworks show.
