Winter Carnival Fireworks!

Yesterday afternoon, we got a call from George Bailey, a teacher that I work with over in LP...he wanted to go and clean off his plane, which lives at the Lake Clear Airport, and offered us a ride in exchange for some company and help...we met him over at the airport and headed over to his plane...the weather didn't work out for a flight, but it's always cool to see George and to explore the inside of the wire at the airport...


Ben in his plane-cleaning outfit was ready to go to work...looking pretty serious about his job of light-aircraft squeegee-er...


Gail in the Element with a spiffy beret and a Winter Carnival button...

After dark, we headed over to Saranac Lake to see the opening ceremonies of the Winter Carnival...the lighting of the pirate ship and the ice castle, and the fireworks, which are always fun...even in a freezing drizzle like we had last night...

My little camera is simple and tough, but it does not do very well in dark conditions with occasional flashes...it's just not that smart...Gail did a great job of taking pictures, while Ben rode on my shoulders to get a view from over the crowd...


The fireworks started off when the pirate ship launched some fireworks at the ice castle...a clever little gambit that unfortunately resulted in the furled sails of the pirate ship catching on fire (more on that later in the blog)...the ice castle responded in kind, and the fireworks display was off and running...


Maybe because of the mist and hanging in the air, the light from the fireworks reflected all over the area where we were standing in a really impressive way, and the booms/whistles/screams/pops from the various kinds of explosions were amazing...


The organizers (choreographers?) of the fireworks did a great job of mixing high altitude explosions with low-level light shows just above the turrets of the castle...


Ben was captivated the entire time, giving a blow by blow description of the size and color and sounds and closeness of the explosions...at one point a shift in the wind brought some of the rocket material down all around us (with some pieces landing on the sleeves of my coat, and a still flaming fragment touching down on some nearby fireworks-watchers, luckily out-of-towners)...Ben thought the whole thing, including the near-incineration of our short-term neighbors, was AWESOME!!!



It was at this point in the celebration that people began to notice the smoldering and smoking sails on the pirate ship, and a minute later, the arrival of a couple of fire engines...Ben, and all of the children around us, thought that this was a highlight of the fireworks display...while the firemen unloaded their hoses and got ready to assault the conflagration on the pirate ship...


As a particularly huge series of booms and technicolor explosions, both high and low, went off above the castle, the SLVFD ran a hose into the pirate ship and ran around the side, entering where Ben had played only hours earlier, and hosed down the sails and mast and flag while everyone cheered...some for the firemen, some for the fireworks, some for both...


The ending of the fireworks display was a pleasant assault on our eyes and ears and noses (yummy sulfur smell!) that went on for minutes before leaving all of us in a thunderous silence, which the gathered crowd swiftly filled with applause and cheers before wandering back to our cars...all of us remarking that this may have been the best Winter Carnival Fireworks display ever!

Thanks Saranac Lake for a fun time with the Winter Carnival so far!