Alan Jackson had a Fourth of July experience a few years ago that’s hard to top, and it involved taking his wife and three daughters on a trip up the East Coast on an antique motor yacht. Alan and his family stopped in New York City and were treated to a fireworks show in front of the Statue of Liberty.

The 2017 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee recently shared his recollection of the memorable experience.

“Well, this one is hard to beat,” says Alan. “A couple of years ago, maybe longer than that now, I had an old boat in Florida. It’s like an old antique motor yacht, and it was kind of a cool old boat. I’ve always wanted to take it up north like to New York and up in that area, up in the Northeast where it’s so pretty. So, we took the boat up there—Denise and the girls, we all went up. They like going to New York City, which I don’t really care about going to the city. So, I got to stay in my boat there at the harbor, tied up, which was cool anyway. So they spent time in the city a few days and then that was Fourth of July, and we went out in the Hudson River that night and they shot the fireworks off and we were anchored out in front of the Statue of Liberty and New York City was behind us, and the Statue of Liberty and the fireworks were going off [while we were] sitting on that boat. That was the coolest thing and my girls still talk about that. I mean, that was the coolest thing on Fourth of July I can ever remember. I can’t top that one probably. It was emotional sitting there watching the Statue of Liberty and thinking about all that. It was very cool.”