Show Setup and Early Evening Festivities

I had the extreme fortune to work with a really great crew for the show. The head honcho was the very same Ken that I met at Winterblast. He was just as nice this time, even though he denies it vehemently! The setup was done over two days, and on the second day, there's quite a bit of a wait between getting all the guns loaded and the show starting. Fortunately, the military base we were on had their own festivities going on, so we went and checked them out a bit.

	Safety first! Fire extinguishers were always nearby. These are the boxes of shells all properly labelled with their orange explosives sign.
I just got a kick out of the Budget rental truck having an explosives sign on it.
	The boxes built and the guns lined up in the proper order. The red caps are to keep the sand out of the guns.
And this is the sand being poured in. Apparently some years they have to add the sand with shovels. I think I'll try to skip those years. ;)
	The mortars (or guns) after they've been sanded. Ready for loading the shells! However, that part doesn't happen until day 2.
This is the little bobcat tractor. I love this thing, it's so cute. It almost looks like some strange exoskeleton for the guy inside it. But then, perhaps I should watch less robotech.
	Here is Ken, sorting through the shells! Each shell needs to be accounted for, and this is a fairly time consuming task. Each shell is removed from the box and is assigned a number according to the master list. These numbers are the cue numbers for when the shell will be fired. I liked this part!
Day 2! The shells have all been laid out where they belong waiting to be loaded and wired.
	The show is electrically fired, so each shell has been "squibbed", or set up for with an electric ignitor. Each shell is lowered into the gun, and then wired for launching.
This is the pegboard that launches the shells. Heather (on the left) was doing the honors for us this time, and she oversees the setup to make sure Ken does it right!
	The shells were loaded, so we headed to check out the military base. They had a number of cool things on display like this helicopter. Charlie and Mike pose next to the guns (guess they didn't get enough of them earlier!)
Never look into a gun! My brother, Mike does just that! Fortunately, he didn't ever do it on the fireworks site!
	We were supposed to shoot off a few shells during the Star Spangled Banner. So we heard it start, and we shot the shells. This is one of them shooting. However, it turned out that it was the WRONG Star Spangled Banner. Nothing like communication! However, part of the confusion came because the Governor of California arrived!
Fireworks during the day aren't quite as dramatic as they are at night. But the smoke does look pretty cool.
	Five planes fly by with flags trailing behind them. There were a number of aerial "acts" for the show, and this was pretty cool. However, the COOLEST was when the F-18 did a low fly by. You could see the burner cone when he hit the afterburners, and it just sounded AWESOME. I tried to take a picture, but one of the howitzers went off and the sound made me jump and hit the shutter. You'll just have to trust me that it looked amazing!
The howitzers!! There were 4 of these cannons, and we were maybe 100 feet away from them. Charlie got to shoot one during the show, which was really cool. Maybe next year I'll try. One has just been shot off here, and you can see the amazing amounts of smoke they produce. On to the show!

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All photos copyright Anne Sullivan