The Anticlimactic 4th of July Story

There we were on the top floor of Opal Divine's Freehouse. We had secured a spot by the rail in hopes of seeing the city's fireworks show which was set to start at 9:30 in nearby Zilker Park. As thunderstorms rolled through town less than thirty minutes before the scheduled start time, we watched people scramble to and fro across Sixth Street. From our dry, comfortable, upstairs perch, we laughed at our good fortune regarding our decision not to go to the park to watch the show.

Then, the fireworks started, and we were laughing for another reason.

Situated directly southwest of our location, the Austin City Lofts building rises some 14 stories above the pavement, and this lone structure just happened to be in the direct eye line between us and the fireworks show. Naturally, it completely obstructed our view of said fireworks.

The following photo shows the building from the northwest as opposed to our vantage point from the northeast, but you get the picture.

We could hear the echoing booms and see the colors reflecting off the dense cloud cover, but that was it. Never in our wildest dreams would the city's big fireworks spectacular (which was over in less than 20 minutes) be concealed by one building, and since such a thing was even possible, I'm not sure that we missed much.

Nevertheless, the joke was on us.

The 4th of July was effectively over, but we still enjoyed our pints (only 2 apiece, moms and dads), cracked pepper fries with dill ranch, and divine quesadilla and managed to laugh about our tiny tragedy all the way home.