Kaboom Town

Last night, we went to Kaboom Town with friends.  Kaboom Town is the Town of Addison’s annual July 3 fireworks bash, held in Addison Circle Park.  It is widely regarded as one of the most spectacular fireworks displays in the country, a well-deserved accolade, in my view.  It’s more than just  a fireworks show, though.  It features vintage airplane aerobatics, war plane flyovers (Cavanaugh Historic Warbird Flyover), live entertainment, food and beer and wine vendors, and a lot more. It has grown well beyond Addison Circle to encompass the entire town and well beyond.  Parking and traffic headaches are testament to its wild popularity.

Anyway, we went.  We picked up our friends and their niece at around 5:00 p.m. and headed over to Addison Circle.  Due to a lot of street closings, traffic re-routing, etc., we took a long, circuitous route but finally managed to turn (the wrong way) into a driveway that we thought would lead to a parking garage.  Well, it led to the exit for the parking garage.  Fortunately, just beyond the parking garage we saw that a LOT of people had already begun parking in a field next to it.  We jumped the curb and joined in.

Our friends had made a reservation at Kahlo’s, a Mexican restaurant in Addison Circle, so we walked the few short blocks to the restaurant and enjoyed a decent alfresco meal.  We could have eaten indoors, but the extremely rare tolerable temperatures convinced us to do otherwise, and it was a good choice.  We were able to have a leisurely, unrushed meal before heading over to the grass-covered “watching” area. My friend and I went back to the car while we awaited the meal check and unloaded the cooler full of water and the camp chairs we had in the trunk.  By the time we got back to the restaurant, the check still hadn’t come, so we continued to wait…eventually, we paid up and headed over to find a place to lay out our blanket and chairs.  Another couple, friends of our friends, and their child were to join us later, but they bowed out at some point, texting or emailing their regrets.

Before dusk, we watched wave after wave after wave of aerobatics, war bird flyovers, a skydiver or two, and various and sundry other aerial entertainment.  Though the park was quite crowded, it wasn’t nearly as jammed as I had expected.  We learned later than the threatened limit on admissions to the park had, indeed, been enforced at some point after we arrived.  When, finally, the fireworks started around 9:30 a.m., we quickly decided the wait was worth it. I wish I’d taken still shots and more video, but I didn’t; the video below is all I can show and it doesn’t begin to do justice to the event. It truly was a spectacular show.

Once the fireworks ended, we waited for a good 30 to 45 minutes before ambling back to the car. The traffic was nothing short of horrible, but we got lucky and headed in the right direction to avoid the worst of it. Though the ride back to our friends’ house and then home was long and circuitous because of the street closings and traffic rerouting, it was an easy drive. A nice end to a nice evening.