As you drive out of Cody towards Yellowstone just a little before the rodeo grounds on the right is a large warehouse with the word FIREWORKS emblazoned across the front with smaller letters proclaiming "Largest Collection of Fireworks in the West!"
Yeah right, another tourist trap. I know fireworks when I see them - we have vacationed in Seattle on the canals and got the big stuff at the reservation there for shooting over the water on the 4th - the Temple of Boom is the dope spot. We are talking the mortar tubes with the 5" balls that shoot 1000 ft plus. I've been to Mexico too - the bottle rockets and cherry bombs and firecrackers for the beach. I don't think I'm going to be impressed.
I was wrong. The Cody Fireworks Factory Outlet is huge and completely out-of-control. None of it is the sissy "you couldn't do something stupid if you tried" California kind. (I love California - but it has a bunch of lame nanny laws - like no fun on the 4th of July.)
Anyway - back to Wyoming. All along the back there are mortars. About a hundred kinds. Over there are the firecrackers - it looks like the produce section at Safeway - how about a 20 lb wheel with 10,000 crackers strung together? Or just a brick of 500? Or the whole aisle devoted to M80s, M60s, M1000's ... (Don't let them fool you - they are 1.4 grains of gunpowder - enough to cause some damage - but no sticks of dynamite as the urban legends go.) They even have the sparklers with wires! And snakes - which for some stoopid reason are banned back home. And bottle rockets. And about 50 kinds of rockets that shoot into the sky. And Roman candles that shoot out gobs of fire from your hands.
This selection was incredible and the prices were great. It made me proud to be an American. Of course if you've flown in you are out of luck - unless you want to roll the dice with Homeland Security. But next time you are taking a drive to Yellowstone..... read more