Main Beach, 9 am

My solitary morning walk was a little different today. By 9 oclock the prime real estate along the water line was already colonized. The typical minimal beach kit includes: one EZ-up (those canopies on portable folding frames), a tent, a beach umbrella, one folding easy chair per person (small size for the kiddies), an over-sized wheeled cooler, a six-foot folding table, various towels and blankets, a portable barbeque, grocery bags piled to the brim with food, bright colored sand pails and shovels. I do not exaggerate. If you can enlarge this photo you can see the line of canopies all the way to the river mouth. They are set elbow to elbow, barely any room to walk between them. It was still early morning. I felt like I was from Mars.

In midafternoon we had to drive across town, past the main road to the beach, which was packed bumper to bumper for miles from the freeway to the shore, cars barely moving toward the water. I wonder where they will fit. Surely by now there is no more parking available, and the beach was full much earlier. What will these latecomers do?

Aside from the thrill of a holiday, the big attraction today is the illegal fireworks that will begin as soon as the sun goes down. It is particularly dangerous this year because everything is so dry. Im writing this 12 hours later, at night, and it sounds like a war zone in my neighborhood. The cats are terrified. Individuals must spend hundreds of dollars on this stuff, some of it the ooh and aah kind that explode flowers into the sky, but some that are just LOUD noise. There is no show of patriotism anywhere that I can see, just license to misbehave. I miss the small parades of my childhood, and the simple fun we used to have decorating our bikes with colored crepe paper.

The very best thing today was a small neighborhood party in the afternoon, with neighbors playing music on a big covered porch. Small and civilized, a nice chance to check in with folks you usually see just in passing.

Hipstamatic: Lowy lens; Love 81 film