DC 4th of July fireworks advice

[fwtcc]

Anyone here from the DC area?  I plan on heading out to watch the fireworks.  How big of a clusterfvck is it?
Also, I plan on seeing as many sights as possible in a matter of 2.5 days. Any advice on that matter as well?

[jdubbs32584]

Anyone here from the DC area?  I plan on heading out to watch the fireworks.  How big of a clusterfvck is it?
Also, I plan on seeing as many sights as possible in a matter of 2.5 days. Any advice on that matter as well?

Check out the local board: CAM

They're a talkative bunch but don't always stray into NMC. Try asking there.

[Duc Stamp]

Pretty big cluster.

Get there early and plan on staying late.  There are places on the parkway across the river to watch, but parking is a mess and getting out of there is a mess as well.

[triangleforge]

Anyone here from the DC area?  I plan on heading out to watch the fireworks.  How big of a clusterfvck is it?
Also, I plan on seeing as many sights as possible in a matter of 2.5 days. Any advice on that matter as well?

How big? I imagine other countries -- developing countries -- send envoys to DC on July 4 for clusterfvck lessons. If you were a resident, I'd suggest heading out to Fairfax High School or one of the other suburban fests, as they've got a fun hometown feel and you're likely to get home before two in the morning. Or hang around until the Saturday following and see the fireworks at Old Town Alexandria with the earnest if emphatically amateur Alexandria symphony hooting away on the 1812 overture & a real U.S. Army artillery cannonade firing for effect...

But since everyone should endure the main DC show at least once, here are the best ways I managed to see it:

1. Across the river in Virginia, but go early; the picnic crowd stakes out its ground starting in the morning, and things get testy as the crowds gather. It's along the GW Parkway as Duc Stamp notes, but if you can arrange to bicycle it, there's a bike path that runs through the heart of the best viewing area and makes for an easier escape.  Long, long ago I watched from the iwo Jima memorial grounds, which was moving, but also disappointing -- see #3 below.

2. From a boat on the river -- I did a canoe a couple of years, but if you're in any small craft, make sure you're well lit (and with lights, not -- much -- liquid cheer) because there are a whole lot of drunks behind the wheels of power boats trying to escape after it's done. If you're paddling, bring friends (and if you really want to try that, I've still got paddling friends back there who'll go in flotilla and might have a spare seat)

3. if there's any way to check for a forecast of the prevailing winds that evening, make your plans to be upwind. The year I was at the iwo Jima, we were directly downwind which meant that after the first half dozen shells we were watching dull, colored flashes behind thick smoke instead of fireworks.

I'll give some quick thought to sights to see while you're there and try to jot them down, but the two that come immediately to mind are the U.S. Capitol ('cause for all its faults, it really is OUR house, and I still get a shiver of pride when I go there, even though I worked on the Hill for seven years and lived a block away for most of that time -- you'd think I'd be pretty jaded, but no. The other place that I find truly touching is out at the battlefield(s) of first and second Manassas out in Virginia. You can really get a glimmer of what it must have been like to fight and die there, and how the battles raged across that terrain.