I’ve made multiple starts on detailing how plans for this outing came together, but they became twisted so quickly that I’m just going to tell what I did with no attempt to explain why. I left home fairly late in the morning on Tuesday, and leisurely drove US-42 and US-40 to Columbus, Ohio, where I checked into my motel near downtown. The first floor was not an option, and when asked “high or low”, I picked high. I would regret that.

I relaxed a bit, then made my way to the banks of the Scioto River just over half a mile away. Columbus celebrates Independence Day with an event called Red, White, & Boom. It includes a street festival, a parade, and fireworks and is apparently never held on July 4th. This year it was on the 3rd. With the temperature in the 90s, it didn’t take a lot of street festival to meet my needs. I found a couple feet of unoccupied curb in the shade and spent some quality time there with an $8 Icee.

As parade time approached, I moved up to the route and found another shady spot to hang out in until a police car and marching band approached. Ford was an event sponsor, and a group of Mustangs made up one of the early parade entries. I don’t really know what the passengers had done do gain their seats, but the line of red, white, and blue convertibles was pretty cool.

I do know what the passenger in this Jeep did. He lived through the attack on Pearl Harbor. Other veterans followed in other vehicles from Motts Military Museum.There was a half dozen or so of these three wheelers in the parade, but this one looked almost custom made for it. I once watched an Independence Day parade in our nation’s capital and remember being impressed with the diverse groups participating. This parade in my state’s capital didn’t have quite as much diversity, but there was certainly a respectable amount including a sizable group of American Sikhs and a yellow dressed Falun Gong group with a lady in a lotus.

When the parade ended, I had a tough decision to make. Just watching people march in 90 degree heat can make an old guy tired. There were virtually no restaurants or other businesses open in the immediate area, and I did not look forward to another three and a half hours waiting on a curb for the fireworks; Nor did I really want to make what was now a one mile walk back to my motel. But I decided that the walk to the motel was the lesser of the two evils and set out in that direction. Near the halfway mark, I found Elevator Brewing open and ducked in for a couple beers and dinner. Sufficiently fueled and cooled, I proceeded to the motel. Remember that game of high/low I’d played earlier? The regret came when fellows sitting in the lobby informed me that the elevators were not working. Climbing to the sixth floor was not what I needed but it was what was required.

I napped for an hour or so then headed out for the fireworks. I wasn’t initially certain that I would walk all the way back to the river but in the end I did exactly that. In front of me, the arches of the Broad Street Bridge were outlined in LEDs (I assume) that switched between red, white, and blue. Above me, LEDs on LeVeque Tower did the same thing.

The Red, White, and Boom website proclaims this “Ohio’s largest Fireworks display” and it’s a dandy. 48,750 pounds of fireworks, they say; Roughly twenty-five minutes long. As seen in this articles’s opening picture, the rockets were launched from the other side of the river on the other side of the Broad Street Bridge and on the near side of the Rich Street Bridge. I suppose people watching from between the bridges had a somewhat better view but I was more than happy with mine.

Before the echoes of the last boom completely faded, people were moving out of the viewing area. Although things were initially quite congested, it was never stifling and motion never really stopped. In fact, the crowd spread out on reaching the streets and I was able to take the first picture. The second picture was taken from my motel room. It seems the main staging area for event buses was about a block away.

I went to Tuesday’s parade because I was there. Ditto the fireworks. This, the 35th Annual Doo Dah Parade, is why I was there. I don’t know who the lady in the lead golf cart was but she was probably about as close to a parade official as I actually saw. She used her bullhorn to thank everyone for coming and offered thoughts and prayers for any trauma caused by what we were about to witness. She was immediately followed by The END. Fortunately, there were lots of stragglers.

I’d met young Groucho earlier in the staging area. He initiated the conversation because I was wearing an American Sign Museum shirt. I did my best to encourage a future visit, and think I did OK. The CHILL! guy was just too friendly to ignore.

Captain Ohio rides a Honda. I believe Honda was the only motorcycle manufactured in Ohio in modern times, but I can’t say whether this particular specimen is local built. The factory in Marysville operated from 1979 to 2005. I also “met” these three art cars in the staging area. The first one may have been here in 2010, or maybe its owner just knows someone who was. A friend of mine sells Route 66 Wine Corks, and often calls his van the Cork Wagon. I earlier shared this staging area photo to get him thinking about an upgrade. The car in the last picture also has some corks but its best feature, in my opinion, is its legs.

I’ve nothing in particular to say about what’s in these last four photos. They’re entries that caught my eye for some reason and there’s plenty more where they came from. My first Doo Dah was certainly a good one. I couldn’t help but think of Cincinnati’s Northside Parade which is also held on the 4th of July and which I’ve attended once. The Cincinnati parade is a little older (1970 vs. 1984), a little more rambunctious (no skateboard or bicycle stunts in the Doo Dah), and a little less political (Northside actually has entries that aren’t political at all). There’s no nudity in either but Doo Dah finds it necessary to specify that in the rules and it got this close. Spectators at both can be part of the show. At the Doo Dah, I spotted this guy across the street who may or may not have just burned his NFL season tickets out of concern for disrespecting the flag.