How losers spend their 4th of July

I returned from my quick & dirty trip to Ohio this evening at 8:00. It was pretty quick and quite dirty (my suitcase smells horribly like campfire smoke) but pretty fun. I had contemplating staying with Tiffany and her friends tonight for fireworks and starting off for Maryland early tomorrow, in time to get to work at 3:30. However, I got in more friend-time in the past two days than I normally get in two weeks, so I decided I would skip the stress of trying to drive 400 miles and potentially being late for work on Sunday, and just go back this afternoon. Because of my temporarily elevated social quotient (maybe if I stopped making up terms like that, I'd have more friends...?) I didn't expect I would feel too bad about spending my fourth straight fourth of July doing asocial, loserly things.

But as soon as I arrived at the house, I could feel the familiar oppression take hold. The Reeking Otter was the only other person at home, and I absolutely could not stand the thought of staying in the house with him while the rest of the country partied. I did some quick research and discovered that the City of College Park has fireworks on the UMD campus at around 9:00.

But not wanting to go out and be a lonely-heart among the crowds, and also being sick to death of driving, I decided to do something rash and take a bike ride. Now my bike is not in great shape since being in an accident in the fall, and also it may not be wise to go out alone after dark on the 4th of July, but considering the alternative of sitting in the stifling house and stewing in depression, I did it anyway. It was pretty cool. There's a bike path that runs through most of College Park, which I've never actually ridden a bike on since I haven't done any riding for pleasure since I discovered that Maryland, unlike Toledo, has hills. I had this idea that I would take the bike path up to the campus and see if I could catch some of the fireworks before the show was over.

At first I was disappointed, because the trail kind of ended at the Baltimore Avenue side of campus, and I needed to be somewhere west of there. But whatever. I figured the point was more to just get out of the house for an hour or so, and not necessarily watch the fireworks. But just a little bit after I had turned around and was heading for home, I saw the fireworks begin.

I was right in front of the big field in front of campus, and I had a pretty good view over the trees. So I parked my bike and stuck around for a while. I even took pictures to prove it! See that blob near the bottom left? That's me! And that yellowish blob at the top center? That's fireworks!


There was absolutely no crowd where I was. Perhaps three people passed me in all the time I was sitting on the brick wall trying to photograph myself with my phone. Midway through the show, I packed up and went home. Now I am going to bed, because my previous lumpy night in the cold tent combined with allergies that pretty much cut my air supply in half (they're still going strong--I'm getting ready to see an allergist) was a poor excuse for sleep. Hope you all had a relatively happy holiday!