They drove 800 kilometres for tonight's fireworks show

Chad Kluke and Veronique Gauthier started their 800-kilometre trek from the province of Quebec on Sunday in order to make it to the Detroit River for the annual Ford Fireworks.

Kluke and Gauthier live in Otter Lake, which is about a 10-hour drive from Windsor.

"I was working [here in Windsor] four years ago, and I saw the fireworks," Kluke explained. "I thought I'd show my girlfriend."

Kluke and Gauthier are just two of many to arrive at the Detroit River early Monday afternoon to get a good seat ahead of the big show.

Mark Jimenez lives in Waterford, Mich., which is northwest of Detroit. He's been coming to Windsor to watch the fireworks for at least a decade.

"There's not a lot of places to see it (in Detroit) unless you want to pay a premium." Jimenez said. "(In Windsor) you can sit here in a park, enjoy some nice lunch — and it's safer."

David Claus is an American living in Canada. Tonight marks his 47th fireworks show — seventeen of them in Canada. He says there's an advantage to watching the fireworks on the Canadian side.

"When I used to work the parking lot over (in Detroit) for the fireworks, all you saw was black smoke," he told CBC News.