A Capitol Fourth

One of the exciting things about being in Washington, DC over the summer is experiencing the Independence Day festivities in our nation's capital. Kinsey and I did some research and found out it was best to get to the area of celebration extremely early. So, at 9:30 in the morning, we headed down to the National Mall for the Fourth of July parade.


McKinsey loves her some America!

The parade finally begins at 11:45.

The parade began with each division of the U.S. military sending out troops in all their formal garb.

These Revolutionary War enacters played a nice little tune on their flutes.

The Daughters of the American Revolution draped in a big ol' flag.

Here's a video of some very talented gents riding about on some old-timey bicycles.

For some reason, giant balloons of Underdog, Garfield, and Hello Kitty were in the parade. Don't ask me why. I guess if you giant balloons lying around you use them in every parade that you can.

The marching band from Alliance in my home state of Nebraska.

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln impersonators made their way on a patriotic float. Although the guy they had playing Washington seemed a little paunchy and Lincoln was a lot shorter than you'd think he'd be. You'd think for the Fourth of July in DC they could have shelled out a little extra cash for impersonators who actually looked like the people they're portraying.

A re-enactment of the Marines raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi in Iwo Jima during WWII. I bet that guy in the back got tired of holding his arms up.

An actual holiday-appropriate giant balloon of Uncle Sam.

There was quite a multicultural theme to this parade, which seems appropriate for America. Different ethnic groups paraded, including ones from Mexico, the Phillipines, China, Taiwan, and, of course, some Hare Krishnas.

After the parade finished up, we took some time off to wander around the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and have an early dinner. Around 4:30, we headed up to the Capitol to get seats for the concert and fireworks.

As you can see, the Capitol lawn and National Mall are both getting quite full of people. And this was two hours before the concert was scheduled to start. The concert, which aired live on PBS, was disappointing. It featured Huey Lewis and the News (pretty good), American Idol winner Taylor Hicks (pretty crappy), classical star Hayley Westenra (decent), Broadway performer Brian Stokes Mitchell (not bad), and Jerry Lee Lewis (OK). But none of these performers sany any patriotic songs. Like Kinsey said, it was like going to a christmas concert and not hearing any christmas carols. The only patriotic songs were played by the National Symphony Orchestra during the fireworks.

Three disappointing things happened during our DC Fourth of July experience: One, it rained a lot. Two, I found out the fireworks setting on my camera sucks at taking pictures of fireworks. And three, my camera battery died. So I don't have a lot of pictures of the fireworks. Luckily, I was able to milk a little juice out of the battery to record the video above. The orchestra is playing the 1812 Overture and that smoke you see behind the concert shell is the cannon fire. Enjoy.