Not a great title, but I avoided the cliche. The DC area welcomes many transplants each year. Many of them seem surprised that I have never joined the hordes down on the Mall for the fireworks. Now, I love fireworks. We used to celebrate as a family, several times we rented a hotel room or, once, did a dinner cruise so that we had a great view of the fireworks, and then a great view of the traffic jams heading home. There are lots of places to view the displays that are not the Mall. Now, I love the Mall. It is a beautiful place, but even before the new security restrictions, the idea of camping out in the July weather (which was very nice this year, but that is atypical) for many hours surrounded by progressively drunker hordes to watch an hour of pretty sparkles and then spend almost several hours getting home - still surrounded by drunken hordes, but now moving drunken hordes - has never appealed.
While the hotel room option is not an every year thing, I have several times watch the displays from less crowded venues - such as the Georgetown waterfront. I hear the Cathedral grounds is a another great one too.
But this year, I watched them from the top of my building which was so cool. Our location and relative height meant that we saw at least four different displays. I tried to work my geography and figure out which ones, my best guess is DC, Alexandria, Silver Spring, and I can't figure out the other. Anyway, it was great fun.
