I Literally Tasted Tacoma July 4th

After a breezy, easy July 4th morning, the family and I headed to the water for some crabbing, Tall Ships viewing, and air show fun. After carefully navigating our boat away from the crowded dock, we entered the busy and bustling Foss Waterway. Seeing the Tall Ships from this vantage was pretty cool. They are, well, up close, tall ships (duh). But what I enjoyed the most was the vibrancy of Grit City and her people, swirling about festively on land and sea.

We dropped our crab pot near the end of Foss Waterway and motored off to find a good spot to view the Freedom Fair air show. We just cut the engine and bobbed in the bay getting pitched in the breeze and the wakes of other water crafts. The spectacularly loud and dynamic airplanes dazzled us with their tricks, dips, and loops in the sky. But the best part was our screaming. We screamed and shouted with glee, as loud as we wanted, whenever the planes buzzed over the top of our tiny boat.

The squealing and screaming took on an even more frenetic pace as my husband kicked up the motor for a little joy ride around Northeast Tacoma post air show extravaganza. Because the wind had picked up even more, we were taking on sea spray that was threatening to soak us. That’s when my husband saw a big spray coming and ducked. I took a huge stream of water in the mouth and up the nose, drenching my hair and sunglasses during mid-joy ride scream. A literal taste of Tacoma! Ah, it’s good for me and it’ll make me stronger, I thought, (in the middle of laughing so hard I was crying).

We made our way back to the crab pot after retrieving my husband’s flying baseball cap from the bay. We got a beautiful crabby haul only after a short soak.

However, this proved to be the most expensive crab in the world.

When we got home, we were dealing with cooking the crab, when the stove caught on fire.

Fortunately, it was small, our stove was old and on it’s last legs. So hubby dealt with the mess and the dead stove, while I hightailed to Joe’s Sports in Lakewood to “invest” in a propane burner with a 30 gallon cook pot to do the crab outside.

(Fast forward to today—so with the outdoor cooking gear and purchasing a new range at Sears, it’s the most expensive holiday crab in the world).

Aw, but we didn’t let the dead stove and the lost Benjamins get us down.

With bellies full of crab, we hightailed to the North End of Tacoma for fireworks (we are blessed with friends in Old Town with a great deck for viewing). It was spectacular and I loved it when a very drunk guy kept screaming, “I LOVE AMERICA—WOO HOO!” after practically every blast. I suspect the poor soul has no voice left today.

Post fireworks, we made our way out of the zoo of the North End of town and the throngs of people by using random narrow side streets to get back to University Place, which was winding down it’s World War III BOOM-BOOM-BLAST-KAPOW atmosphere, where fireworks are legal.

Tacoma, you tasted pretty good this year!