Back to Clear Lake for Fireworks

After the Hobo convention, we stayed until the missing part arrived, by Wednesday-1 week after the tow-we were on the road again. the wonderful folks at Oakwood Campground, let us finish staying 5 days we paid in advance. We mostly recovered and cleaned.

One day, one of the Camp Hosts came to the door and asked if we would like to go to the fireworks. One of the other campers were leaving and could not use the tickets. Our hosts said,"you two have been through so much, we would like you to have the tickets". Thanks sounds good. How very nice. What nice people.

I had read that the National Association of Pyrotechnics was having a week long convention. During the days they had workshops, etc, at night they gave fireworks displays. We could hear the booms some nights. We were going to the finale, the last night, the big wazoo.

We drove to the Fairgrounds at Mason City at dusk. It was like a concert, lines of cars, people all over. We, with tickets, got into the stadium. We had chairs and found a place almost center stage. It was explained that these fireworks would be 100x better than Walt Disney. We noticed alot of people had ear plugs.

After dispensing with the end of convention awards etc, the award winners each gave a display of their work. Now they use computers to set off the displays, which gives a multitude of different visual arrays. Each one of these were amazing. Some of the shells were one of a kind, made special for this event. Bragging Rights. It was explained that some shells take too long to hand fill, and could not be used commercially. Some of these shells took all week to pack. These are the best of the pyrotechnic geniuses..

Unbelievable eye candy.

Then there was what was called the public show, where each company donated several shells for the finale. They didn't donate the small stuff!! One was a Chinese one with a big flash and a ear popping explosion. The guy behinds us saying YEA, YEA...he was getting off!!

There is no comparison of fireworks I have seen...this was 10000000x better and longer than anything I have ever seen.

Imagine unbelievable fireworks of all colors, shells going off on top of each other, the sky was painted sparkles and blooms, and they were playing Pink Floyd music in the background.

IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAT THAT!!!