Photo of the Day: Chinese Lantern

Kris Kondylas submitted the following narrative to accompany today's Photo of the Day:

A few friends and family members of mine were on the boat out in front of Bay Front Road in Edgemere (Old Road Bay), watching everyone light off fireworks on the 4th of July.

A friend of ours that came along saw these lanterns on Amazon.com a few weeks before and thought they looked cool to try them out when we all went out on the boat for the 4th. They kind of act like mini hot air balloons.

They have a little cardboard piece on the bottom center that you light with a lighter. I think there is some kind of chemical on the cardboard that allows a flame to burn slow and steady. After the lantern fills up with the hot air, up and away it goes.

You do not get the lantern back. After the flame goes out they just fall out of the sky. However, they are made of a biodegradable material so they are ok for the environment. They are really cool and it was something different to light off. They can be really tricky, if you don't let them fill up with enough hot air they will just fall down and once the balloon part touches the flame it just catches fire real quick. But we were able to get a few up.

Do you have a photo you'd like featured as the Photo of the Day? Submit it to marge.neal@patch.com.