Then, miracle of miracles, Brad found out that on the 3rd of July, the Pops do a dress rehearsal. It is exactly the same performance, minus the fireworks and about 450,000 extra people (that's a real number...not one of my hyperbolizations). Bam. That was our plan. One of my friends was willing to come stay with Claire, and we were set to go.
But, ah...the best laid plans. You knew something like that was coming, right? We had wrenches tossed into our plans that were quite literally out of our control. Primarily, the weather. Because of the threat of Hurricane Arthur, as well as weather coming from the west, the planners of the event decided to move the fireworks to the evening of the 3rd. It was supposed to rain all day on the 4th (it did, by the way). This meant that the concert we were planning to go to that was expected to have only 50,000 in attendance was going to have 500,000 instead. And, to top it all off, they weren't opening the gates until 5:00 pm, rather than 8:00 am.
We decided to do what we could, so Brad planned to head down there at 4:00, in order to get in line early and get a good piece of grass. Which he did, by the way. I had to stay at home with Claire until our babysitter got here, which wasn't going to be until 5:30. It ended up being closer to 6:00 before I could leave, though. I ran to the burrito place where I picked up dinner and started my trek toward the Esplanade. It took the train a looooong time for who knows what reason. And, once I got to the correct T stop, I still had 10 or so city blocks before I got to the outer edges of the lines for security. I made pretty quick time and threaded my way through the crowds, jockeying for a good position in line. I kept following the crowds, making sure I was going toward the correct entrance. I got through security (with all of my belongings, I might add. Brad and I checked the website beforehand to see what we were allowed to take in and learned that backpacks were no-go's. Those who did not know this and took backpacks had to leave them outside the secure area, with no guarantee that they would see them again. I saw several people just throw their backpacks away.), got my neon yellow arm band, and began the hunt for Brad.
The one we left at home.
This proved frustrating, as I wound my way through the people and sidewalks and port-o-potties, trying to get directions from Brad on where to find him. His directions made no sense. I wasn't seeing any of the things he was describing. In fact, I wasn't even seeing the Hatchshell at all. It was as I realized this that I got to the end of the sidewalk and realized what had happened (a theory that I verified with a nearby policeman): Brad, with his red arm band, was in the Hatchshell Oval area, which had been closed to new attendees because of having already reached capacity. I, with my yellow arm band, had been automatically funneled in the Hatchshell Island area, a.k.a. the overflow.
My heart sank. I knew that Brad and snagged awesome seats. Look:
I could get awesome seats right at the edge of the Charles, but we wouldn't be able to see what was going on at the Hatch, even though we could hear. I tried to convince Brad to stay where he was, but he insisted that he'd rather sit with me than have the awesome seats (how sweet is he?). He packed up, went through security again and eventually found where I was holding down some ground for us. He brought the blanket, and I brought the burritos. What a pair we make.
We were able to hear the concert just fine and ended up having an awesome view of the fireworks. In fact, hordes of people thronged over to where we were in order to see better.
Our view
Boats on the Charles. We were sitting on the Boston side, so this is a shot of the Cambridge side.
Before we reached the end of the concert, though, the coordinators of the show explained that the State Police were calling for an "emergency evacuation" and that the show was being curtailed. I'm surprised that with that intense-sounding wordage, there wasn't a scary, trampling exodus. Thankfully, there wasn't, and everyone headed out in an orderly manner.
And let me tell you: it was none too soon. We had gotten a few blocks away from the Esplanade and the crowds had just begun to thin a bit when the heavens opened and floodwaters akin to those of Noah burst forth from the sky. Sheets of torrential rain crashed down everywhere. Now, I should mention that Brad and I had taken the Boy Scout approach to the evening: we were both wearing our Chacos and had taken our rain coats. When the rain started, we ducked under the nearest store-front overhang and put on our rain coats. I also tucked Brad's library book into my jacket and guarded it as though it were my child. We decided that since we had raincoats, we'd just run through the monsoon and, hopefully, get into the train station and onto a train before the majority of the masses. Our planned worked out well. We sprinted quite a few blocks and were drenched DRENCHED 3 seconds into our run.
Luck was with us in the train station, as well: we were able to squeeze onto the first train that came through. It still took us forever to get home because of ALL THE PEOPLE, but we fared better than most, so I call it a win.
We had a fantastic time and are so grateful that we did it- even if nothing actually went according to plan. #boswellsloveboston
Also, I didn't even write about the dental work I had done that day, the phone call about the cat, the stranger who took up half of our blanket, or the drunk Scottish guy who crawled over us in the train. Just try and tell me that we didn't have an eventful July 3!
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