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Hi, and welcome! We're the Bankstons of Springfield, Virginia: Johnny, Mary, Amanda (9) and
Cody (7). I'm a budget analyst for the federal government, which around here is about like saying you
breathe air, and Mary is the part-time secretary at our church. Every Fourth of July since we moved up
here in 1991 we've gone down to the Mall for the parade and the fireworks. People who live around here
are supposed to be too smart for that. We're not.
This year we finally have a scanner (Mary gave me one for Father's Day, so she has only herself to
blame for this page), and here's the day in pictures. Click on any little picture to see it bigger,
with the story. Then use Next and Back to walk through the whole day. Fair warning: the fireworks
pictures mostly did not come out. You had to be there.
10:15 a.m.
On the Metro |
Noon
The parade |
4:00 p.m.
Our spot |
8:50 p.m.
Waiting |
9:15 p.m.
The good one |
9:20 p.m.
The rest of the roll |
9:30 p.m.
The finale |
11:10 p.m.
The long way home |
The big pictures are about 15K apiece, so
they shouldn't take long even on a slow modem.
Our Day by the Clock
| When |
What |
| 10:05 a.m. | Blue Line from Franconia-Springfield. Seats for the three of them, a pole for me. |
| 11:45 a.m. | The parade steps off on Constitution Avenue. We found a spot about three people deep. |
| 1:30 p.m. | Blanket down on the grass east of the Monument. From here on somebody stays with it at all times. |
| 2:00 to 7:00 | Hot. Mid-90s, no shade, and the grass is brown from the drought. We took turns going into the museums to cool off. Mary took the kids to see the dinosaurs at Natural History; I went to Air and Space and stood under the airplanes for half an hour. |
| About 8:45 | It gets dark and the Monument lights up blue. |
| 9:10 p.m. | Fireworks! They shoot them from over by the Reflecting Pool, so from our side they go up right behind the Monument. |
| About 9:30 | The finale. Everybody cheers, and then everybody stands up at once. |
| 10:15 to 11:10 | Waiting on a train with what felt like half a million other people. |
| 12:30 a.m. | Home. Cody slept from the platform to his bed. Thank goodness Monday was the day off. |
About the Monument
If you haven't been downtown lately, the Washington Monument is wrapped from the ground to the tip in
scaffolding while they repair the stone, with a see-through blue mesh over the whole thing. At night
it's lit from inside and the whole tower glows. Amanda says it looks like a rocket ship on the launch
pad. I expected to hate it and I don't. We don't know how long it will be up, so we wanted pictures with
it, and you'll see it in almost all of them.
If You Bring Kids
Nine years of doing this with children has taught us a few things:
- Take the Metro. Don't even think about parking downtown.
- Buy your farecards for the trip home in the morning. The lines at the machines after the
fireworks are as bad as the platforms.
- Freeze the juice boxes the night before. They work as ice packs until about 2 and they're
cold drinks by 4.
- The museums are free and air-conditioned. Use them.
- Put a card in each child's pocket with your names on it, and pick a meeting spot before you
set the blanket down. Ours is the flagpoles at the bottom of the Monument.
- After the finale, leave right away or wait an hour. There is no in-between. We learned this
one again this year.
Do you go down for the Fourth? Did you see us? (We were the ones with the red cooler, which narrows it
down to a few thousand.)
[email protected]
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since July 25, 1999
Last updated August 8, 1999
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Our Fourth on the Mall