My first Independence Day celebration has come and gone and what a great day it was!
We spent all day Friday cooking and prepping for our picnic lunch and dinner to watch the fireworks over the Hudson River.
The plan was we would leave here at about 11.30, get a good spot near where the fireworks would be. We would have a picnic lunch and a picnic dinner and wait and relax until the fireworks would start after 9pm.
Our menu was decadent! Lobster, prawns, perfectly roasted chicken, potato salad, normal salad, cucumbers soaked in vinegar, homemade croutons, black/white cookies and a gallon of the most refreshing homemade lemonade ever!
We were all packed up and got to the 24th street area in no time. There are large blocks of new parkland that meant we had prime choice of spots to make our home and after walking around to find the right area we ended up walking on the new renovated pier that has been converted into parkland. We found a spot on the lush green grass, under a tree and put our two chairs down. It was then that a police officer came to speak to us. Our plans were not going to come into fruition – all the ‘park’ area was going to be out of bounds for the fireworks. Ugh! There were many others that had the same idea as us and all were being told the same thing. Here we were with chairs, food, books, our cribbage set, radios, sunscreen and repellant with nowhere to go! Unfortunately, there was nowhere nearby where we could execute our plan to set up camp for ten hours so we decided to sit on the seated area of the pier and at least enjoy our lunch and then head back to the apartment.
We had our lobster and started drinking the lemonade… one man who went past actually asked if I was selling any!! ahhhahaah But yep, lunch was as delicious as planned. Here is Bill with his traditional New England Lobster Roll –
And as I couldn’t comprehend mixing Lobster with mayo and eating it on a roll.. we made the lobster salad recipe from this months issue of Yankee Magazine… which was more to my liking!
Here is the lemonade… it tasted as good as it looks!
So after our luncheon on the pier, we headed back. I ended up having a long long afternoon nap while Bill cheered the Yankees on against Toronto. By the time I woke up it was dinner time, so we had our picnic in the apartment –
The chicken was delicious – Bill used a recipe that used honey, cumin and orange as an seasoning over the chicken and the flavours were fantastic. We also turned the lemonade into Cherry Limeades… ohhh yes these were delicious!
The beauty of the location of the apartment to the fireworks tonight was with our change of plans, we could still see the fireworks from the rooftop. Without being around 1 million other people. So at 9pm we put the NBC broadcast on record and headed upstairs to enjoy the view. Here is the view of the Empire State that we get –
The fireworks started and they were stunning – with the fireworks being at 24th Street, we were at the ‘start’ of them – the fireworks barges lined the Hudson up to 50th Street. They were beautiful and so loud – the booming noises were bouncing off the buildings! It was great to look around and see so many people on the rooftops all around us. As an aside, I am finding things here very strange at the moment. It feels like Christmas and New Years – summer weather, holidays, fireworks – it feels weird not to be Christmas shopping and putting up decorations. It is amazing how we can link weather with memories!
Anyway I took some photos and also decided to film some of then… Bill then decides to start story telling so it is all on this video –
You can view all of the photos here. It was a truly wonderful day – enjoying all the good things and just taking it easy!