Although I took new photos today, I'm still stuck posting from the Fourth of July.

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The United States of America's 144th birthday is one for the history books.

The USA is the leading country on the planet for having the most cases - by far - of a deadly virus during a world pandemic. The USA has a current President who is a virus denier and who is actually encouraging citizen behavior that will only worsen the spread of the disease. He lies & continues to have mass gatherings with no concern for the public. On another front (but connected to the spread of the virus through mass gatherings without social distancing), there is large scale, social unrest that hasn't been seen in America in over 50 years. Plus for some unknown reason, violent crime rates are up across the country. America is living through a time of true crisis.

Because many local towns and communities chose (on their own) to eliminate their annual America's birthday party celebrations, private citizens bought their own larger (often commercial grade) fireworks to set off at home for the Fourth of July 2020. Judging from the sound and smell and flashes, we were probably the only ones in our neighborhood who didn't. For several hours, all the fireworks booming & flashing in all directions around us sounded like we really were reliving the Revolutionary War with "bombs bursting in air". Or gunfire. Very surreal.

July 4th, 2020 there was also a full moon with a lunar eclipse.

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I captured this fireworks display, beneath the full moon, from our back deck.

We had watched both the Capital and the Macy's (NYC) fireworks displays on TV. Beautiful but not the same as sitting out in the night air & experiencing the real thing. I'm not content with living life vicariously. But during this time of COVID - outside our "at home" safe cocoon - I know that things right now can't be "normal". Bored with TV, I went outside & my husband followed. We were greeted by fireworks everywhere we looked. Big, little, and REALLY BIG!!!

The trees have grown pretty tall over the years; so some of the blasts had to be really big to clear the tree tops.
I considered getting a DSLR & tripod for this surprise show; however, my husband said that by the time I got set up, I'd miss everything. So we mainly watched & talked. To snap a few shots, I merely used the little camera hand held & just hoped for the best. The Bridge Camera was not meant for this kind of shooting handheld. Still, I was very pleased with how many shots turned out. A full moon, in a lot of my photos, was frosting on the birthday cake.

Despite all, this not-so-normal Fourth of July actually ended up as a feel good experience.

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From my gallery https://pbase.com/britestar/isolation_stayathome_2020__summer