After spending the last few "Freedom's Birthdays" in the West and various countries, I have to say spending this one in Oregon was one of the more interesting! For the past few weeks there seems to be a parade for just about anything here in Portland. It's America's freaking birthday, was there a huge parade heading through downtown? Ha, no! Interesting. Though a parade does not illustrate our patriotism, I still feel like Freedom's birthday ranks a bit higher than the Rose Festival (oh she didn't! yeah, yeah I did).
Other than that, 4th of July in Portland is pretty entertaining! We all enjoyed plenty of sweet music by our local bands and then got ready for our rooftop bbq and fireworks show. For the first time, everyone who came contributed to our fine feast and we had plenty of libations to go around. The communal grill was lite and getting its use all day. For the most part, everyone up there shared their food and each others company. We got to watch a half field of the Beaver's victory over the 51s. As the game came to a close, the rooftop started getting pretty packed and it started to get a little chilly.
So, we hunkered down in our prime places and got ready for the after show fireworks. Before our show in Portland started we started to see all the fireworks in Washington. From my rooftop we had a 360 degree view of everywhere and could see the whole horizon just exploding with fireworks. Then suddenly there were tons of fireworks going off right behind the building, level with the deck. I don't think I've ever been that close to fireworks before. Then the Waterfront Show started and then the PGE Park show started. We had almost two hours of fireworks all around us, it was awesome! The night before people had set off fireworks for hours and the party continued all night long on the fourth. After several adventures, we made it to the beginning of the morning. Happy Birthday America!
Picture: Our spread for the day, homemade zucchini (from the farmers market) bread, fresh caught the day before grilled salmon, Omaha burgers, grilled portabello mushrooms with caprese salad toppings, grilled zucchini with Parmesan cheese, chips and salsa and baked sweet potato fries.
Tip for the Day: Again, clean as you go. It makes the night more enjoyable and the next day a little more bearable. Also, it is easier when cooking, to utilize all of your cooking methods, so as great as everything looked, there was a lot of grilling going on. So if that's your plan, always have a back up plan, in case your cooking method bails on you...
No comments:
Post a Comment