Winter Blast and Ed's Birthday

We tried to time our stay in Lake Havasu City so we could attend the balloon festival on our first weekend and the Winter Blast on our last.  We learned that the best night for the blast was Saturday, the day we were scheduled to depart.  So we left Havasu Falls RV Park and moved only twenty miles down the road to The Steps, a BLM site that is popular with boondockers, where we met up with a group of Escapees Boomers with whom we attended the Winter Blast back in Lake Havasu City.

At every Escapees event we have attended we always hear about Ed's birthday celebration and we have now had the opportunity to attend one.  The story is that several years ago the Boomers were going to celebrate fellow Boomer Duane's birthday.  They went to the store to pick up the cake only to discover that someone had forgotten to order it.  The baker only had one cake available. It had been ordered for Ed's birthday but, unfortunately, poor Ed had passed away and the cake was not picked up.  The Boomers got the cake for half price and a new tradition was born.  Each year at The Steps they celebrate Ed's birthday with this little twist.  Rather than singing Happy Birthday, they sing the theme from the TV show Mr. Ed, A horse is a horse, of course of course.......... It was all great fun and the cake was great too.   

The Winter Blast is a display of fireworks presented by the Western Pyrotechnics Association.  Members of the group get a chance to show off their latest displays of exploding rockets, bombs, cannons and firecrackers.  In order to get a good seat where you can see both the aerial and ground displays, we had to arrive by 4 PM, 3-1/2 hours before darkness set in. 

This was the 25th Winter Blast so the show started by setting off the XXV that was covered with 1,000,000 firecrackers.  It was ok, but the displays that followed were much, much better.

As soon as the sun went down the aerial show began with a few people setting off random blasts.

Finally, after 3 1/2 hours, the show began.  Each of several companies showed their best stuff.

BOOM!!!!!!

AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!

BANG!!!!!!

OOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!

POP!!!!!!

WOW!!!!!!!

FABULOUS!!!!!!

AWESOME!!!!!!!

WWWWOOOEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

MAGNIFICENT!!!!!

FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!

HHHOOOOORRRRAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!

Now if you would like a better sample of the sounds of Winter Blast here is a link to Cool Judy's blog that has a few videos she shot.  We have seen fireworks displays all over the country, but  this one has to be near the top, as you are really close and the companies are really showing their best stuff.  And it is all set to great music to boot!!  We thought it was OUTSTANDING!!!!!