Independence Day

For the 4th of July, I went with Daniel's camp to the Colorado Rapids soccer game. They were playing the Chicago Fire. I was kind of excited because I used to go to Arizona Sandsharks soccer games all the time when I was a kid. But it was a disaster from the start!

First, a huge storm rolled through. As I was leaving the house at 4:30, I could hear tornado sirens going off. When I got to the school, it was raining and really windy. I was wearing a tank top and shorts. Not exactly ideal for rain and wind. I thought that this storm would pass over in an hour like all the others have and by the time the game started at 7, it would be bright and sunny again. I was wrong. It continued to rain almost until we arrived at the stadium. Then at least it stopped raining, but it was still cloudy and about 60 degrees. In shorts and a tank top, I was cold. Our group was selected to help carry out the American flag onto the field. So we all lined up and grabbed a side of the flag. As we were out on the field, a girl started singing the National Anthem. And I knew what was coming. As she sang "and the rockets red glare..." fireworks went off. And I was stuck on the field holding the flag. It scared me to death.

We went back to our seats to shiver on the cold bleachers. One section over was an entire group of very obnoxious, yet typical, soccer fans. They brought drums and horns and were screaming the ENTIRE game. They tried over and over and over to get the wave going and were directing the crowd in singing all sorts of ridiculous songs and chants. As the sun went down, it started getting really cold. I just wanted the game to be over so we could watch the fireworks. The game did end, and Colorado lost.

It was supposedly "Denver's biggest and best fireworks show" because it was just outside the city, so they were allowed to use bigger explosives. They had to relocate almost half of the stadium (which was a record 19,000 people) onto the field so they could see the show. That took about a half hour. Luckily we didn't have to move all 70 of the campers down to the field. I was bracing myself for the show to start. I covered my ears, and I was okay. The show started off pretty good. The music was really loud, but I was okay with that because it drowned out the sound of the fireworks. I actually was able to uncover my ears about 10 minutes in. There were random gaps in the fireworks. It was strange. For like a minute and a half there would be nothing in the sky, and we were left wondering if it was over, or what? Then about ten minutes later, I noticed that there were two songs playing right on top of each other. The music got messed up somehow. You know how when they fade out one song and bring in another, for a couple seconds you can hear both. Well it was like that for the entire time. We heard "The Stars and Stripes Forever" right on top of "I'm Proud to Be An American". The piccolos did not go well with the electric guitar. The one positive thing, is that it distracted me enough to not be as afraid of the actual fireworks. After ten minutes of hearing two songs at once, and random gaps in between the fireworks, the show just stopped. No finale, it just stopped. A voice said that they were experiencing technical difficulties, and the show would resume later. We gave up and left. It seemed that everyone else felt the same way because the stadium basically emptied out. It was disappointing.

The bright spot of the evening was actually the drive home. We were in one of those big charter buses, with big windows. We were nice and warm and we could look 360 degrees around the city and see fireworks everywhere. We must have seen 20 separate shows. It was incredible. The whole ride home you could hear everyone in the bus going "Oh! Look at that one over there!" Then when we got on the freeway, we passed right by Coors Field where the Rockies had just lost to the Diamondbacks :-) and we caught the middle of their fireworks. On the highway we got a front row seat for about 10 minutes until it faded into the distance. And that was a really good fireworks show.

I made it sound worse than it was. To be honest, I was just glad to be able to spend time with Daniel on the holiday. And on the way home, I was thinking "this is my last night going home alone." That was enough to make me happy.