Sunday night, Aisha and I went for a drive to the fabulous Galicki Lights in Ipswich only to discover that the whole Galicki property was pitch black. No twinkling lights, no animatronic snowmen, no Santas on skis. Bummer. I’ve since learned that Galicki Lights don’t happen every year, and I’ve just been lucky to have seen them in the past two years I’ve been in Ipswich. In true Ipswich fashion, there’s no real way to know if they’re going to be on or not. Just word of mouth.

Anyway, we continued on to check out the Danvers Lights, which we’d never seen but were recommended by a coworker. While not nearly as grand as Galicki’s, the house on Arthur Street was bright and festive and worth the drive through an unfamiliar part of Danvers. A couple kids with their parents frolicked through the yard while taking selfies. People were in the house, too, which made it feel kind of intrusive. Like, these people are sitting down to dinner and we’re all staring at their house! But I guess that’s what they want.

The real excitement came when we got back onto the highway and were greeted with flames and smoke. A highway fire! It was over in the brush, thankfully, and it must’ve just happened because traffic wasn’t blocked. We scooted past one fire truck that didn’t appear to be putting out any flames yet. The fire stretched for yards and yards and continued on past an exit and onto another median. I’ve never seen anything like it! It made for a fairly successful light-looking adventure, I’d say. We found lights, just not the kind we were expecting!

Went light looking…

Found a fire.