The lakefront was so crowded Thursday for the 4th of July fireworks that CPD turned us away at the North Avenue tunnel.  We crossed through the park to the underpass and scurried through jammed traffic on the Lake Shore Drive ramp.  Then we hopped the fence just in time to find a spot as the quick 15-minute display hit its stride.  I do wish they’d extend the display a bit for the special occasion.  It’s 15 minutes every Wednesday at Navy Pier.  The show was good, though:

I made my way home via public transportation and read about the stabbing incident at Navy Pier.  To me, the news coverage made it seem like an entire event was pure mayhem and chaos.  Incomplete picture of a day in which a million people spent all day at the beach and stuck around to have a 99.9% peaceful, happy celebration of America’s birthday.  The police did a solid job of directing traffic (even if I admittedly disobeyed their instructions to find a way to the beach.)  I tweeted something to that effect and my experience was immediately dismissed as absurd – that’s Twitter for you.  Aren’t there fights every year at the fireworks?  And hasn’t it gotten much, much better since they stopped combining it with the Taste?  1 fight out of a million people doesn’t seem like top story news to me.  People died elsewhere that evening.  Whoever yelled “gun” is responsible for the trampling injuries, intentional or not.  Assuming it was a mistake, but you have to know the difference between a firework and a gunshot on July 4th before you cause a panic.  I’m sure if you were stationed down at Navy Pier, it was terrifying to see the crowd run and see someone bloody from a knife wound.  But this wasn’t mass chaos.  Overall, it was a nice night on Lake Michigan.