Pyros in Paradise (Friday, February 12th and Saturday, February 13th, 2016)

The Western Pyrotechnics Association is in town, and with that comes a great fireworks show. They are here in Lake Havasu every year for Presidents Day Weekend, and attract huge crowds for the three day event. They set up in Sara Park, on the south side of town, in the Havasu 95 Speedway infield. Parking for the event is $5.00 per car, which we heard goes directly to the club to cover their expenses, and gate entrance is $5.00 per person. They sell food and drinks inside, which includes local craft beer from Mudsharks, which is $4.00 a pint.

On Friday night, we headed down to the speedway with Steve’s brother and his wife, to watch the fireworks show. We stopped and picked up Subway sandwiches on the way, and brought a cooler of beer and water to go along with our dinner. When we hit the highway on the south side of town, we couldn’t believe the traffic that was trying to head south on the highway. We thought they must all be trying to get to the fireworks, but it really wasn’t clear. It took us about an extra 15 minutes to reach Sara Park compared to a normal day, and when we arrived, a lot of the traffic didn’t go into Sara Park, they went further south on the highway or up into the desert.

We are arrived at the event at about 5:15, and although we thought we were early, the main parking lot was already full. We were parked about 100 yards beyond the main lot in the overflow parking. But not to worry, there was still a lot of room in overflow beyond where we were. We pulled out our lawn chairs and cooler, and made ourselves comfortable by the roller hockey rink, where we enjoyed our dinner before heading into the stands.

We headed into the stands at about 6:00, and although there were already a lot of people, there was plenty of room for the four of us. It was still about an hour and a half until the show would start, but they were doing some classes behind the raceway so periodically we would get a little teaser of what was to come. There was also a lot happening in the infield to keep us entertained. 

There is a big egg in the infield.  Not sure what that's all about

They shot this canon several times while we were waiting for the sun to go down

A beautiful Sunset through the safety fence at the racetrack

The show finally started at about 7:30, and was fun to watch. There were a lot of smaller fireworks down low in the infield in addition to the larger ones that could be seen for many miles. All of the displays were synched to music, which was really entertaining. And the announcers kept us informed on which group of pyros we were watching at any given time.

Part of the show for the Rocky Mountain Pyrotechnics.  As they played Colorado Rocky Mountain High

The egg in the infield is coming to life

This thing puts off an amazing amount of heat

To get the full effect of the show, you really have to see the video. It is just a short snippet of the entire night, but really shows what a fireworks show can be.  Steve had to change the music to keep from breaking any copyright laws, but you can still see how great the show was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvq643GShA0&feature=youtu.be

We also did a second night of fireworks from a very different perspective. When we were on our cruise in January with our youngest daughter (see our posts from January 9th-16th), we met a couple, Tim and Cheryl, that were also from Lake Havasu. They had invited us to their house for a potluck and fireworks party. So on Saturday, we headed over to their house at about 4 o’clock. They live on the south side of town, and their back yard backs up to the desert BLM land. They had a bunch of their friends over, and we had a wonderful picnic in their back yard. We met so many great people, and had time to get to know some of them pretty well before it started getting dark. 

There was so much great food to enjoy, along with the wonderful company

 When the sun started to set, we packed up our stuff and headed into the hills behind Tim and Cheryl’s house. They had three Razor dune buggies, so they took a few trips to get all of the people, chairs and coolers out into the desert. Steve and I threw our chairs and cooler on one of the razors, and then took the short hike up the hill. It was a steep but easy walk, although very dusty from all of the dune buggies and ATVs that were running around. We lined-up our chairs along one of the ridges, where we would have a great view of the fireworks. 

You can see the lights in the distance at Sara Park, We had great seats!

The Razor Brigade

A very simple sunset from our hill in the desert

It took a while for it to get dark enough for the fireworks to start, and while we were waiting, the trail behind us was very busy with vehicles heading out into the desert. Most of them were very thoughtful, and went slow past our setup, but of course, there were those few that we all know and love!

The fireworks were beautiful from the desert! We couldn’t see some of the lower displays, and of course, we were watching from further off so we couldn’t hear the music, but it was fun to hang out with a great group of people in this beautiful desert environment!

When we thought the fireworks were over, we headed back down to Tim and Cheryl's house, and to our surprise, the fireworks started up again.  So we finished watching them, as we sat by the campfire and enjoyed a beautiful night in paradise.