Thunder 2007 Report

Thunder Over Louisville 2007 has come and gone, and I'm proud to say that I survived.  I'm still tired from it all, and my nerves are still trying to get back to normal from dealing with the crowds, but I survived.  The weather was perfect - it was sunny and upper 70s with a nice breeze all day long, and once the sun went down it got a bit cool, but you couldn't have asked for more perfect weather.  And the perfect weather brought out the people.  The Derby Festival folks and the police estimate the crowds on the Louisville and southern Indiana sides of the river to be close to one million people. I think the majority of those people were in the RV parking lot where we parked. 

I'm sorry to say that my plan to leave the parking lot just as the grand finale of the fireworks was going on didn't work.  We were able to park about 100 yards from the parking lot exit, and could have had a clear shot to get out to the street, but in front of us was a group of about two hundred twenty-somethings partying and dancing.  Yes, dancing.  Someone had brought a portable generator and a DJ was playing music.  At least they turned it off while the fireworks were going off so you could hear the choreographed music, but once the last shell exploded we were back to listening to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean."  No, I didn't see anybody moonwalking; but it was way too crowded for moonwalking any way. 

As I said, my parking lot evacuation plan didn't work, so we just sat there in the Blazer watching the battery powered TV and looking at the mass exodus of people leaving.  Plus, we couldn't have left even if the kids hadn't been having their rave; we were parallel parked and had wall-to-wall ravers on my left and a row of cars parked perpendicular to us on my right, so we had to wait till a couple of the cars left so I could squeeze out.  Once we got out on the street,  the fireworks had been over for about 45 minutes and I have to say that the traffic was way better than I expected; this year it only took an hour and 15 minutes to get home, as opposed to the usual two hours. I was surprised to be home in bed by 12:30. 

All in all, it was a pretty good day, if you don't mind feeling like a sardine.  As we were waiting in the parking to leave, one of the School Friends said "I think this might be the last year we try this" and I had to agree with her.  I'm getting too old to deal with the crowds and traffic.  I drank a bottle of water and two cans of ginger ale all day long, because I didn't want to have to stand in line for an hour just to use a nasty porta-potty.  So next year, I think I'll watch Thunder from the couch at home.