Macy’s July 4 Fireworks

...

Today is July 4th, Independence Day in America. So happy birthday, America. I’m sure you will celebrate in your usual style: with patriotic speeches, flag-waving, unbridled commerce, and of course, lots of fireworks.

2011 marks the 35th year that the Macy’s department store will be staging their famous fireworks display in New York City, and the spectacular demonstration of pyrotechnics will also celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, as well as the nation’s 235th birthday party.

Undoubtedly the country’s largest fireworks display, vantage points along the Hudson River between 23rd and 59th streets will be at a premium when more than 3 million New Yorkers and visitors, pack the area before the first of more than 40,000 fireworks rises into the night sky. Meanwhile, millions more will be watching the event on television.

Click to view full size

Last year, at this time, I was making my way to a vantage point along the Hudson River to see my first Macy’s July 4th fireworks display. I had great expectations for this famous event, having read and heard about it from time to time over a period of many years.

Unfortunately, when it finally came and went, I couldn’t help feeling that the actual event was something of an anticlimax to the hours of waiting in stifling heat and long lines that snaked their way to the too few Port-a-loos, hot dog carts, and drink vendors.

Maybe I am hard to please, but I don’t think so. Having arrived at the park along the West Side Highway during the afternoon, I expected to find an exciting program of music and family friendly events scheduled throughout the day. After all, what are three million people supposed to do before the first rocket blasts into the darkness at 9:00PM?

The answer, it seemed, was – not much.

As the minutes ticked into hours, and a hot, humid day turned into a test of endurance – especially for those who had arrived early – there was not a lot revellers could do but conserve their energy, eat overpriced junk food, drink lots of water, and wait.

And wait.

At some point during the afternoon the crowd was woken from its torpor to the sight and sounds of a military flyover featuring a number of air force fighters that followed the path of the Hudson River up the length of Manhattan before returning down the river and disappearing into the blue haze.

That, if you didn’t include the occasional police helicopter passing overhead, was pretty much the extent of the afternoons entertainment. That, and a New York City fire department boat spraying jets of water high into the air as dusk fell, which, to be honest, was probably the highlight of the day for me.

Apparently, again this year, “Revelers along the viewing areas will enjoy a FDNY Fireboat Water Show and a military flyover of four F-15's from the Air National Guard's 104th Fighter Wing.”

The theme for the event in 2011 is Gift of Freedom, and in addition to saluting the lady in the harbor, Macy's will also commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001 with a tribute in light during a soaring rendition of Amazing Grace. All in all, it is bound to be an exciting, spectacular and emotional finish to America’s birthday celebrations.

The most obvious question remains: was it worth the hours of waiting, and would I do it again? I know, I know, that’s two questions. Ultimately, I would have to say, Yes, it was worth the hours of waiting, and No, I wouldn’t do it again.

Having arrived in New York City just days before July 4, I was keen to experience this national holiday in the company of millions of New Yorkers and fellow visitors, and I’m glad I made the effort despite the heat and the hours of waiting. However, this is one event I am more than happy to cross off my bucket list in favour of any number of other choices available to the visitor in New York City on Independence Day.

Be that as it may: Happy 235th Birthday, America. I hope you have a great day.

-o0o-

Website of The Week: I’m Just Walkin’



Screenshot of the I'm Just Walkin' website

Excuse the pun, but I stumbled across the I’m Just Walkin’ website earlier this week, and was immediately hooked. The site documents Matt Green’s walk across America from the time he set off on Saturday, March 27, 2010 from Far Rockaway, New York, until he reached Rockaway Beach, Oregon, on Wednesday, August 25, 2010, five months later. Along the way he encounters the best of America, receiving constant support and encouragement from a wide cross section of ‘ordinary’ Americans who gave him money (not that he was asking for it), bought him meals, and invited him into their homes for hot showers, warm beds, home cooked meals, and friendly companionship.

Elsewhere on this blog I have written a review of the 1979 Peter Jenkins book, A Walk Across America, and Matt’s blog only confirms that the tradition of walking across the USA continues to this day.

Neither Matt Green or Peter Jenkins are the only people to have undertaken long, extended walks of these types, and I’m sure Matt won’t be the last. In fact, reading Matt’s blog will almost certainly inspire others to try similar ventures. And why not? As my occasional series of Things You Discover Walking posts indicates, walking gives you time to see what is around you, to examine the landscape with the greatest care, and it allows time to appreciate the natural environment in ways speeding down an interstate highway will never let you do.

So take some time now to check out Matt’s I’m Just Walkin’ site. Even if it only inspires you to leave your car at home and walk to the local shops, observing your surroundings with a renewed interest as you go, it will have achieved its purpose.

-o0o-

If you are interested in reading some of Peter Jenkins' books documenting some of his own personal walks across America, click on the images below to purchase these titles via Amazon.Com...

  

In Review: A Walk Across America

At the ripe old age of 22, and already married at just 19 years of age, Peter Jenkins was lost. Metaphorically, at least.

Having grown up in a nice middle class family, in a nice middle class neighbourhood, and having been groomed and prepared for entry into a nice middle class college, his life seemed to be going in exactly the same direction as that of thousands of other young Americans.

As 1969’s ‘summer of love’ slowly but surely turned into the long winter of disillusionment that was the early 1970s, Peter did what many others have done before – he went looking for America.

There is a history of searching in America. Searching for new lands. Searching for wealth. Searching for minerals and resources – in particular, gold and oil. And then there is the search for Self. The search for meaning.

These themes have been at the heart of many great songs, novels and films, and no doubt will continue to be. Paul Simon’s song America, is one example. John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, and Jack Kerouac’s classic novel of the beat generation, On The Road are two novels that examine this thesis. Numerous movies have also explored this subject matter, in particular, Easy Rider, the 1969 classic starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, for which the tag line read: A man went looking for America – and couldn’t find it anywhere…

Ten years later, Peter Jenkins was able to write: "I started out searching for myself and my country, and found both." While Peter’s 1979 book, A Walk Across America describes that quest, his personal ‘search for meaning’ had in fact begun over five years earlier, when, on the morning of October 15, 1973, he began his walk from the small upper New York state college town of Alfred, to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he arrived 18 months later in April, 1975.

In some ways this is a frustrating book. I suspect that if it was being written today, we would learn a lot more about the background to Peter’s disillusionment with America, and the reasons for his anger and sense of alienation. Unfortunately, we learn little of the great social upheavals taking place in America during the 1960s and early 1970s: the race riots, the 1968 assassinations of Senator Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the growing protests against the war in Vietnam which resulted in the deaths of four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, and so much more.

So when Jenkins heads out on a cool autumn day towards New Orleans, his only goal appears to be to walk across the United States with the aim of deciding if he should stay and live in America, or whether he should move elsewhere.

Along the way he finds his answer.

Towards the end of the book Jenkins writes: “I had started out with a sense of bitterness about what my country appeared to be. But with every step I had learned otherwise. I had been turned on by America and its people in a thousand fantastic ways.”

His only companion for most of the journey was a huge Alaskan Malamute dog called, Cooper. Together they encounter a hermit mountain man; are run out of town in Robinsville, North Carolina, but a little further down the road they are ‘adopted’ by an African American family in Smokey Hollow, North Carolina. Due to lack of finances Jenkins had to stop and work during his long walk, and here too he encounters the ‘real’ America he is looking for. He shovels horse manure on an Alabama ranch, works for two months in a North Carolina sawmill, and spends a month or so on a hippy commune in Tennessee.

As you would expect, Peter Jenkins meets and greets (and sometimes has to run and hide from) a huge array of characters that make up 1970s America. Police officers, poor southern black families, rich southern white families, rednecks and moonshiners, Friday night boozers, and Saturday night losers, and countless strangers along the way who either threaten him, offer him food or invite him in to their homes for a night or two before continuing on his way. He even gets to meet the then Governor of Alabama, George Wallace.

But of all the experiences Peter Jenkins encounters, none are as profound as his encounters with God and religion. By his own admission, neither he or his family where regular churchgoers, but when he moves in with a poor African American family in Smokey Hollow, headed by matriarch Mary Elizabeth, his attendance at the small Mount Zion Baptist church every Sunday is non-negotiable. Here he is moved in ways he never expected. And later again, in New Orleans, his attendance at a revivalist gathering becomes life changing.

You have to admire Jenkins’ desire and determination to not just embark on a journey of this magnitude, but the fortitude and strength of character he shows – often despite great challenges – to complete it.

A Walk Across America ends with Jenkins meeting Barbara, his future wife in New Orleans.

Eventually, they would head west together, and continue the walk from Louisiana, through Texas and New Mexico, across Colorado before finally completing this monumental journey in California. Jenkins would go on to write about this part of the walk in his next book, The Walk West: A Walk Across America 2.

A Walk Across America is not a travelogue in the sense that a Bill Bryson book is. This is a journey into the self. The journey of one young man trying to find himself, and his desire to rediscover his country. During this journey, Jenkins' faith and pride in his country -- and himself -- were tested to the limit, and ultimately restored.

--o0o--

Peter Jenkins has written numerous books since undertaking his first walk across America. Click these links to purchase A Walk Across America , The Walk West: A Walk Across America 2, The Road Unseen, Along the Edge of America , Close Friends, and Across China . Click on the images to purchase via Amazon.Com:

  

Travel – Getting the Full Experience

~ My recent review of The Texas Cowboy Cookbook prompted a friend to ask: Why on earth is a travel blog reviewing a cookbook? And a Texas cowboy cookbook at that?

So today I thought I would explain my rationale for reviewing the cookbook (and other publications), in the hope that it will encourage readers and prospective travellers to expand their reading list and broaden their research before they hit the road.

For me, travel is not only about ancient monuments, famous landmarks, lying around on the beach getting sunburnt, or taking yet another golden sunset photograph. It is also about all those other things that go into making travel experiences truly memorable and unique.

Things like trying to gain insight into the culture and history of the countries I pass through. It’s about digging deeper into the morés and traditions of the people that make these countries what they are. And it’s about immersing myself in the travel experience, so that I can hopefully come away from my latest journeying with a deeper understanding of the world and the peoples that inhabit it.

I am a firm believer that you don’t have to actually be travelling to immerse yourself in the travel experience. The travel experience for me begins with research, with reading a wide range of books about the countries I plan to visit. With gaining a basic understanding of the language of the people so I can deepen the connection with them as I interact with them on a daily basis.

Most people, when preparing for a major journey, confine their ‘research’ to general country guides or location specific guides like the one for New York City previously reviewed on this site (Knopf MapGuide: New York), or Road Trip USA (Road Trip USA). As good as they are, these guides, by their very nature, cannot provide you with the deep background insight into a nation you get from reading good travelogues, biographies of important national figures, and the histories of the people, places, and nations you are planning to visit.

Hence my recent review of Robb Walsh’s 2007 publication, The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, Bill Bryson’s Down Under, A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, and Bypass by Michael McGirr – to name just some of my book reviews.

Actually, I have also wanted to include reviews of feature films, documentaries, and television series on this blog as well, but I just haven’t had the time to devote to this. I believe there are many films and TV programs that help provide another level of insight into the travel experience. For instance, the brilliant documentaries of Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The War, etc), the travel adventures of Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor (The Long Way Round, and Long Way Down), and the journeys of Michael Palin (Sahara, Himalaya, and Full Circle, etc), all come to mind.

Then there are great feature films like those of the director Werner Hertzog, whose wonderful films, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, and Fitzcarraldo fuse drama, stunning cinematography and magnificent landscapes to transport you to a world that is both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. Or the more recent Tulpan, by Sergei Dvortsevoy. This film, which won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, looks at the fast disappearing world of nomadic sheep herders in Kazakhstan, and combines comedy, drama, and documentary style film making to show us a landscape that few city dwelling westerners (or ‘easterners’ for that matter), will ever get to see.

In fact, just writing this entry has prompted me to start putting aside some time to watch these movies, and television programs and write reviews of them. So look out for these in the near future.

I hope this brief rationale for my reviewing policies also prompts you to broaden your research parameters, and gets you thinking ‘outside the box’ about ways you too can get the full experience out of your travels.

NOTE: To see a full list of all the books reviewed on The Compleat Traveller, click on the ‘In Review’ label below.

Image courtesy of Gregor Books…