Being new Bostonians my wife and I thought we should stay in town for the celebrations rather than spend it on my in-laws boat in Narraganset Bay (which is what we normally do).  There have been many people including ABC and The Points Guy who rate the Boston 4th of July celebrations as being one of the best, so we thought we should probably take advantage of it since we live here.  We had just come off a busy weekend visiting Philadelphia and celebrating my parents 40th wedding anniversary and I had a busy two days of work prior so lets just say that I enjoyed sleeping in.  We checked the weather report and saw the threat of thunderstorms for the afternoon and evening so we decided to hold off heading down to the Esplanade to hear the Boston Pops and see the fireworks until right before the show.  At about 8 the weather looked ok so we quickly packed up a few snacks and water into a bag and walked down to the Esplanade.  As we approached the area where sound towers were set up (to hear the concert) it was just packed.  We “walked” around a bit trying to find a spot to park ourselves and finally decided to give up and head back to our apartment to watch the show on TV.  At this time we also saw some lighting off to the north.  We grabbed some burritos on the walk back (whats more American than some burritos?:-) and had some beer in the fridge.  Getting home we relaxed and enjoyed the show, the A/C, the beer, and our burritos.  In the middle of the show, MA State Police evacuated the crowd to nearby road tunnels as there was imminent threat of lighting.  About 30 minutes later the show went on and was fabulous.  At the time the fireworks were about to begin we headed up to the roof deck on top of our building to try and catch the show.  We realized that a neighboring building was probably going to block our view.  At this point it also started to rain pretty hard.  We headed back in and were watching the  televised show.  I thought that we might be able to hear the fireworks out our window so I went over to open it.  At this point my wife realized we could see right down Beacon street directly to the show.  I opened the window and we sat there watching and hearing the fireworks and listening to the soundtrack provided by the telecast while staying nice and dry.  While we know some things to help us plan better for next year, our celebration of Independence Day turned out pretty good in the end.

(View of the fireworks from our apartment.)