Amazing! That’s all I can think to say. Last night was utterly amazing. And I wasn’t even at the whole event. Man, does Nashville know how to celebrate!

Read this article from the Tennessean to get a glimpse of what 4th of July in Nashville is like.

Julie, Manuel and I didn’t make it to the concerts. We were too busy talking, eating dogs and corn on the cob (grilled to perfection) and toasting our Freedom as Americans with our margaritas and just hangin’ out at their house.

Eventually, though, we made our way downtown with plans to watch the fireworks from somewhere in Riverfront Park. Heh. Silly us. The pedestrian bridge over the river from the coliseum to Riverfront was blocked off and we got there too late to make it across the Shelby Street bridge in time. So we parked ourselves in a marked off area on the coliseum side and watched the amazing light show from there. This picture is close to what my view was — except I was much closer to where the fireworks were being shot off (the bridge you see is the pedestrian bridge I spoke of).

The only downside to our front row view was that the music wasn’t piped across. We couldn’t hear any of the Nashville Symphony’s live soundtrack to the fireworks. Ah, well. I guess you can’t have everything.

Traffic was a crazy wild-thing — so we sat in the back of Manuel’s truck, hangin’ out and talkin’ and listening to great tunes from his stereo until the cars cleared out enough for him for forage a path through the insane Nashville drivers desperate to get their sleeping, cranky, sunburnt kids/selves home to bed.

And not once during the evening did I need a sweater or longsleeve shirt (a staple on most LA July 4th nights). The evening air was balmy, smelled of fresh rain and, once the ringing in my ears quit from the booms of fireworks, alive with the sounds of summer critters singing praises to the God of Freedom and Liberty.

I LOVE living in Nashville!!!!

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  — Gal 5:1