Independence Day in DC

Seth and I both LOVE the 4th of July in DC. It's our favorite holiday, and we were really looking forward to going to "Seth's spot" for fireworks...right in front of the Washington Monument, overlooking the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial.
We imagined it to look something like this....
We started our day out right with some blueberry pancakes, compliment's of my roommate's boyfriend Jason, and then went on a nice Rollerblade adventure to Gravely Point. It tuckered us out, it was really muggy and humid! After falling asleep in front of the TV (to this weird 70's show Airplane!) we got ready and adventured out to find the perfect spot for fireworks. After finding the perfect parking spot by the capital, we went through Smithsonian Security only to find out that we'd have to go down to a checkpoint closer to the Washington Monument. We hiked back out and walked down to the checkpoint...but it was closed! Apparently, there was a tornado and severe thunderstorm warning, so they decided to first close the security checkpoints and not let people go onto the national mall until it passed. I think they were afraid something like this would happen again...

We walked down to the Holocaust Museum and sat on a little window ledge just as it started to rain...and about an hour later, a national park service man told us that "for our safety, we really needed to evacuate" and about that time we saw people from the mall leaving...so we walked (16 blocks) back to the car in the rain. We weren't about to give up, so we went to our friend's house who lives by Union Station (I should include a map...this sounds confusing) and waited out the storm.
About an hour before the fireworks were supposed to start, we ventured out in the car to see if the mall was open again (have i mentioned that the mall is a mile-long outdoor strip of grass that people gather on for big events?...a lot of people ask...) Anyway, so we found out it was open and went back to get our friends....which turned out to take a lot longer than we expected, and by the time we parked and started walking toward the mall, we realized the fireworks were starting in 10 minutes. With 2 minutes to spare, we reached the first security checkpoint, but it was so crowded we decided to run down to the next one to see if it was less crowded. We made it to the next checkpoint...about a minute after the firworks had started, and they had already shut it down. We were SOOO disappointed...we couldn't get on the mall. We ended up sitting outside the fence by the mall with a partial view of the fireworks (isn't that so sad!).
Luckily, Seth with his ever-optimistic attitude had brought glow-sticks to give out to kids, so we divided them up, and after the fireworks were over we walked around and gave them to the kids who were also outside the mall grounds. It really did cheer us up!
Last night I decided that next year we HAVE to be in DC just to get our optimal seating for the fireworks show. Next year we'll go at noon....