Every year there is a big party at Gas Works Park for Independence Day called the "WaMu (now Chase) Family Fourth." We thought about going this year and staying, since we walked around Lake Union last year and saw it, but didn't stop. However, this year the only fireworks in Seattle would be on Lake Union, which meant that it would be even busier than last year. So we ended up just staying home most of the day and went out around 8:30 to find a spot either south or east of the lake.

We went up onto the I-5 overpass that leads to Capitol Hill, but eventually police closed the bridge to both cars and pedestrians, so we couldn't stay. It was definitely one of the best views, so it was annoying that they made us leave. After that we went down to the lake and stopped somewhere along Fairview and ended up having a decent view of all the fireworks. It wasn't too crowded where we stopped, which was nice. A boat and a couple of buildings were in the way a little bit, but not that bad.

The show lasted about 20 minutes and seemed better than last year. We were also close enough to hear the music that was playing along with the fireworks, which was pretty cool. I'm kind of glad we ended up not going to Gas Works Park because of the huge crowd of about 50,000 with traffic jams from the afternoon to 1:30 in the morning.

Here are some pictures from last night: