As a part of the weekend full of 175th celebration activities, Saturday night featured Chelsea’s first fireworks show in years.  Thanks to an invitation from one of the organizers, I was able to enjoy the spectacle from the launch site on Pierce Lake Golf Course, and I was able to observe that fireworks are POWERFUL.  From my vantage point not too far from the launch site, I had fireworks exploding almost directly overhead, and I felt every one of the blasts.  It was impressive.

I also learned that people who run these fireworks shows are at least a little bit crazy.  For many modern shows, the fireworks are set off electronically from a relatively safe distance; however, for the Chelsea show, the bulk of the fireworks were set off the old-fashioned way: with the road flares you can see glowing red in this photo.  The fancy-pants electronics were saved for the finale, when there were too many fireworks flying at once to be launched safely by hand.