Fantasy of Lights Boat Parade

One week after the Phoenix Electric Light Parade, cousin Raina, her husband Jesse, Kate, and I headed to the Tempe (AZ) Town Lake for the Fantasy of Lights Boat Parade. We arrived a little over two hours before the parade was to start and found spaces for our chairs in what was essentially the second row of other parade watchers. Before sunset, we were treated to "light shows" on the Mill Avenue Bridge to our right courtesy of the setting sun and the light rail bridge to our left courtesy of LED lights.

Mill Avenue Bridge (original span in the foreground, new span [partially visible] in the background)

The bright orange of the setting sun was replaced by the cooler grays and blues of early nightfall.

The new bridge (foreground) built to accommodate the Light Rail system and the trestles of the old railroad bridge (background)

Roads and Bridges Magazine named the Tempe Town Lake Light Rail Bridge the tenth best bridge built in 2008. The Bridge was selected from a group of 70 other nominees for its superior design and construction.

The triangular truss bridge design includes a state-of-the-art fiber optic lighting system that can change colors as the train crosses and provide other interesting visual effects.

A fiber optic tube was installed under the deck of the bridge to illuminate screens covering the truss structure.

The lighting component was conceived by artist Buster Simpson, who has developed several lighting programs to control the color, pattern and movement of the light, such as how quickly the colors change or move across the bridge.

A light rail train crossing the bridge

As start time for the parade of boats approached, we captured these images of the old Mill Avenue bridge.

The simple combination of lights and shadows produced a striking backdrop for the approaching colorful boats and lights.

The route called for the boats to stay near the shoreline on their approach from the right, proceed to the light rail bridge, cross to the other side of the lake, and return to the starting point.

The Fantasy of Lights Boat Parade was to feature approximately 50 festively-lighted boats of all sizes. Among the first group of boats were those below.

To be continued.