This year I had the excellent fortune to celebrate the 4th of July in Washington D.C. on the national mall. You can see by the photos there was an excellent turnout despite the fact that it rained off and on most of the early evening. But by show time the weather had cleared and the show was spectacular. This was the first time I have celebrated the 4th in Washington and it was very inspirational when you think about the reasons why we observe the holiday. The only bad thing is I somehow lost my mp3 recorder, I am of course very upset due t the fact that I had recorded a commentary of the experience. Someone out there will have an interesting recording along with several lectures of a historical nature from the Gilder Lehrman Institute, enjoy whoever you are.
The Smithsonian sponsored an interesting event that celebrated various cultures that included food, clothing, crafts etc. There were a number of other exhibits dedicated to space exploration. I did not spend a lot of time at the exhibits as I arrived only an hour or so before they started closing but it was a lot of fun and there was a great view of the capitol building.
