I felt a lot of pressure this year to have a really good Fourth of July.
Maybe it was because of the Semiquincentennial, a.k.a. America's 250th birthday. I don't remember the Bicentennial in 1976, but it's always seemed like it was such a big deal. With that in mind, the stakes felt even higher this year than they usually do.
Or maybe it was because of the disappointments of July 4ths past—the promise of fireworks that ended up not being all that visible, the house parties with illegal fireworks that I found more scary than thrilling, the bout with Covid in 2022, being stood up at a Ryan Adam concert in Battery Park in 2003. It all piles on, year after year, making each Independence Day even more important—and stressful—than the last.
This year, I spent hours poring over local listings of parades and fireworks displays, looking for somewhere I'd be guaranteed a seat and a good view without having to, say, arrive super early or even camp out overnight. I wanted something festive without having to drive too far.
And I wanted real pyrotechnics, not drones. (I understand these are harmful to wildlife and disturbing to pets and sensory-sensitive people, but I have not yet gotten over my unappeased childhood obsession with them.)
This year, the place to be seemed to be Long Beach—which had expanded its show to three different launch points along the harbor for America 250. Hoping to get a front seat to all three of them, I booked a boat ride with Harbor Breeze Cruises.
I'd taken their harbor boat tour once before, over a dozen years ago, so the main sights were familiar to me—the Queen Mary, the Lions Lighthouse, and Parkers' Lighthouse (which isn't a lighthouse but a restaurant).
All of those offered popular fireworks viewing spots—and I'd considered them all, too.
But ultimately I decided to set sail on the Caroline—an 80 foot, double-deck yacht that's available to charter for dinner cruises, weddings, and yacht parties.
Although it has a capacity for 100 passengers, there aren't 100 seats—so I found myself standing on the upper level (for the best view), towards the back of the boat (to reduce seasickness), clinging to some kind of life preserver storage unit.
We departed Long Beach's Rainbow Harbor just before 8 p.m., just early enough to enjoy a little bit of daylight before the sun set at 8:08 p.m.
And as the illegal fireworks were getting set off from various points throughout Downtown Long Beach with the onset of twilight, I had just enough time to get a drink and some chips at the snack bar.
Harbor Breeze Cruises was running fireworks cruises on all of its boats, both in Long Beach and San Pedro—but the Caroline was the smallest, oldest, and only one not custom-built as part of the company's fleet.
It also idled a lot farther away than the other boats when it was (officially) fireworks time.
Our best view was of the rockets shot off next to the Queen Mary, illuminating both the historic oceanliner...
...and the big adjacent dome that used to house Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose (until it left in 1993 and was relocated to Oregon).
Behind us, the fireworks launched off of Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier peeked out from behind Island White (one of the "Astronaut Islands" of the THUMS oil islands complex)—and to our right, another launch site lit up Long Beach's Junipero Beach.
If I had chosen to set myself up at any of those land locations, I probably would've only seen one fireworks show.
Instead, I got to see all three—though each one was relatively diminutive, especially compared to the epic displays of Disneyland or San Diego's Big Bay Boom or NYC's Annual Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular.
We watched in silence, no oohing or ah-ing, just the pop-pop-pop of the explosions in the distance. A nearby catamaran was blasting "Disco Inferno" as it passed the Caroline.
And after 20 minutes, it was over—another year passed, another milestone marked, with the acrid aftersmell of skyrocket smoke clinging to my hair.
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