As most of you know, July 4th is Independence Day in the US and a big fireworks event. Independence may have been nice 200 years ago, but we aren't any better with our own government now than we were with the British. What matters of course is the fireworks! They are usually sold in the US only from mid-June to the 4th of July, some sell a few days after the 4th.

About an hour from my house is an Tribal (aka: Indian, Native American) reservation where we bought our fireworks. For those of you who don't know, Tribal reservations are under federal rather than state law. Federal law allows fireworks, where many states and counties ban or restrict them. Where we went was a place called Boom City, a fireworks haven with 155 separate stands all bunched together in a neat little mini-city. There was a 2-mile long line of cars to get into the small parking lot, and it took us more than an hour to get in.

I think we're getting closer!

As we got closer, there was a steady stream of people coming out carrying bags and boxes of fireworks. We finally got in and found a parking space.

The view from the parking lot

I meant to get pictures of the aisles between the stands and the insides of a few, but I didn't get around to it (next year I will!). It was about 5pm on the 4th. A few people (there were 8 of us kids) went around and started buying right away. Me on the other hand, being the smart shopper I am (heh) decided to wait. One thing I did buy right away however was a pack of mini-shells. It was a 6-pack of shells about Ôø‡ inch in diameter and 1 inch long with a mini mortar tube. They looked so funny I just had to get them! They were in a yellow box and called "Loud Little Suckers". Well they weren't loud, but they did suck! A single Zebra firecracker is louder!

We walked around and checked out the stands for a while, then went across the road to a field to play with small stuff until later. Around 6:30pm I decided to start buying stuff because I didn't know what time people would start closing their stands. A few were closed, but most were still selling. I focused on buying from stands that were almost out of fireworks and just trying to sell out so they could go home. Those stands were selling for a lot cheaper than normal, for example, I got 3 gross (one gross is 144) of Mad Dog whistling bottle rockets for only $10. Read my Class C buyers guide for tips on buying fireworks and getting good deals.

All the fireworks we bought (but most were not used on the 4th)

By then the sun was going down, so we went over to the field and played with more small stuff until it got dark. When it got dark we brought out bigger stuff like fountains cakes, and shells. I was saving the majority of my fireworks for my birthday party, which is also in the (mis)Adventures section. Unfortunately, two of the people that were with us and had bought a lot of fireworks were saving theirs for a separate party as well, and didn't use any of their stuff except for a few firecrackers and things like that. That made me kind of mad because everyone else used at least some of their fireworks. I used nearly all my small stuff, as well as a cake and 12 Black Cat shells. One of my friends had found a cake earlier that day that the fuse had gone out on and was still good. We took off the wrapper and exposed the fuse and lit it again. The fuse went out after a few tubes went off and we were unable to get it going again so I took it home to modify and use at my party. After a little while longer we drove home. I wasn't quite content with it, but knew my party that I was saving most of the fireworks I bought and all of my homemade stuff would be much better.

The fireworks I saved for my party