July 4th picnic

Colin and I decided to go downtown to see the fireworks from the riverfront. We thought that it might be nice to bike the 8 miles or so to the Canal Street Ferry, and then take the ferry to Algiers and sit on that side of the levee and watch the show. We packed plenty of consumables, and left early in the evening so as to be comfortably established for the 8pm "dueling barges" show. Here is a photo essay of our Fourth of July holiday.

Colin waits at the ramp entrance (the one for cars) at the Canal street ferry terminal.
Notice the overladen picnic basket and his styling chapeau.

The view from that same ramp waiting for the arrival of the ferry. Amusingly enough, the ramp had contradictory signage, which originally confused us, and made us wonder if we were allowed on the car ramp.

A unique view of the crescent city connection from the ferry.

We has a picnic spread! Also, space to spread our picnic, which was not the case on the East bank of the river, which was filled with people both for the 4th of July, and for Essence festival.

The view from the Algiers levee of the St. Louis cathedral, appropriately back-lit from the heavens. See how close we are to the French quarter? There were two boats shooting off fireworks in the mile between us and this church.

The beautiful fireworks.

All in all we were very pleased with ourselves. I had suggested going across the river because I thought it would be less crowded, and I remembered that the levee on that side of the Missippi was right on the water. We had a perfect position to veiw the fireworks from, and it was not too crowded with tourists. In fact, I think we were surrounded by local West bank families, and their picnics. All in all it was a complete success and a gorgeous evening. Even the weather cooperated, humidity was really low and there was a cooling breeze during our ride too and from the ferry.