Baltimore/Washington A Nearly Perfect Weekend About This Page:

[mommapants]

Going to the Air show…


Once we were all settled into “base camp” we started to explore. Pretty much the rest of the afternoon went like this…one person/group would get up to go potty or get a snack or explore the airplanes or by a souvenir and one person/group would stay back and watch all the chairs.

Evan made a few purchases but really didn’t want to explore too many of the walk through planes. He bought (well I bought) a T-shirt, Blue Angles book with DVD and Mom bought him an airplane play set.

Evan's new T-shirt
Mostly Evan just wanted to watch the show. There was no program for the show so we had no idea what acts were performing or when. We got to see the Golden Knights paratroopers and some stunt flying and a few single jets perform.

The weather today was perfect. It was warm but totally overcast. There was no glariness and there was a decent breeze. Saturday had been a really clear day and I bet the people got fried. We were sitting out on the runway, a white cement runway with no shade anywhere. If it had been really sunny we would have all been melting. Again just total dumb luck that we picked Sunday to go to the show and that it was overcast.

saluting

So we spent all after noon doing whatever until around 3pm when the BA’s were scheduled to perform. As the announcer made the call that they were getting ready you could feel the excitement in the crowd build. You could watch the video screen as the pilots loaded into the planes and then they drove past the crowd to get to the furthest runway for take off. It was totally cool to be that close.


I have to say it was just so amazing. There were 6 planes and they did so many cool things. I was just is awe of the perfect unison of every move – talk about precision. My mom loved it when they would fly straight at each other and then both turn to avoid a collision. Evan loved it when one plane would fly upside down over another plane and they appear to only be inches apart. I liked when all 6 planes would fly in V shape and all turn or break-off at EXACTLY to same time. It is truly amazing the skill involved.
balt blue angels :: 102_0846.mp4 video by hbryfogle - Photobucket

As the Blue Angels flew by I could Evan whooping and he gave me a big thumbs up and “AWESOME”!



The show lasted about 30 minutes and about half way thru people just started to pack up and leave! What? Weren’t they here to see the BA and now they are leaving I mean what is the deal-o with that? I later realized they probably watched the rest of the show while standing in line to get the busses back out to the stadium.
balt blue angels :: 102_0847.mp4 video by hbryfogle - Photobucket

Not me, we sat and watched everything. After it was over the BA’s drove their planes back past the crowd again and Mom took Evan up to the fence so he could be really close. He told me he could feel the heat of the engine as it passed by.

Sorry I don't have more pictures I took a lot of video on my camcorder and I also just watched and enjoyed the show.

The show was loud and Evan did wear swimmers earplugs and then headphones overtop of that.

After the performance, which was the final one of the entire air show, Jill’s kids wanted to see some plane they had missed but Evan did not. I took him over to wherwe the BA’s had parked the plane to get a better look and we found out they were giving autographs so Evan was able to get the Captains autograph – no picture as it was just too crazy.

Then it was a potty break and back into line for the shuttle busses. I suppose it was as efficient as it could be but we still waited almost an hour to get onto a bus. The kids were tired and getting antsy waiting in line but overall they were good. There were a few very serious looking police officers walking around Evan got a picture with one of them – my God they look like babies.



We got back to Fed-Ex Center parking lot and we were not in the same area as we picked up. The parking lot is basically a huge circle and we were dropped off at section F. We parked in section D. Problem is we didn’t know which way to go. We could see cars in both directions. I was a little annoyed as it was like “here you go, c-ya” and no direction as to which way to go. We started walking and figured we’d just have to see if we where going the right way. I was very happy when I saw lot E as I knew we were close now. I felt the whole drop off was handled poorly. Everyone is tired, people are walking all over the place and cars are driving around and no one has a clue what they are doing – it was just an accident waiting to happen.

On a side note – my mom always says “If Disney can do it, why can’t other people” I mean Disney never would just drop you off without so much as a good bye. Also when we arrived in the morning and parked the car people tend to walk behind their cars which is where the people coming in are driving/parking. All they needed is one of the parking attendants to tell everyone to walk in-front of their cars (like at Disney) but no, so it was just mass confusion. But I digress – again.

Once back in the car we wanted to find a place to eat and figured we could find something on the road. Jill wanted something sit down like Applebees but after I told here I really didn’t want to spend that much time she agreed. As it was, we had about a 3 hour ride home. We got out of the DC area and traffic and didn’t really want to pull off of 95 and just take our chances so we pushed on. Pretty soon we were heading around Baltimore and knew we wouldn’t have a good pull –off around the city. Once we past Baltimore we pulled off at a rest stop and had a fairly good and quick dinner. We had Roy Rogers – I didn’t even think they still had Roy Rogers. I think we all got chicken. Evan got himself a lunchable and some fresh fruit.

After dinner we headed back home. Evan and Eric both slept the whole way back and around 9:30pm I was pulling into my driveway.

We had had an awesome weekend.

Thus ends the TR. Thanks for following along.

[pamcarey]

The air show sounds great! I would love to see the Blue Angels some day! Thanks so much for sharing your TR!

[chezp]

Wow, the air show sounds amazing. I love the way you have the Blue Angels and we have the Red Arrows - they seem very similar, from the photos I've seen of the BA and I know how amazing the Red Arrows display is.

[rlb38]

Thanks for sharing it was a great weekend!

[lauriep]

Wonderful weekend, Holly! You were definitely meant to do what you did on each day, from the timing at the Fort, where you ended up eating at the harbor, and the weather on Blue Angel day. Well, the bus-and-backpack scenario could have gone better, but all-in-all, a really magical weekend.

[KMB733]

Glad Evan enjoyed the show!! I remember getting to see the Blue Angels as a kid when they would come to town for the local airshow.

[Colexis Mom]

Glad you had a great time at the airshow! Thanks so much for sharing your trip with us!

[JKnott17]

Great weekend! The airshow sounded like a lot of fun, how cool that Evan got a captain's autograph, he must have been thrilled! I agree with you, whenever we go to large events I'm always comparing to Disney "Disney would have handled that better", or "that would never happen at Dsney" are things DH and I would say a lot.

[honeybee723]

Glad you enjoyed the Blue Angels. I had the pleasure of enjoying them last weekend during the Sailabration when they did their practice runs. They're amazing!

[OhToodles!]

WHat a great way to end the weekend! I even got a few chills just watching your videos.

[mommapants]

Thanks everyone for your kind words and following along. We had a really great weekend. The kind you would hope to duplicate but know you never will beacuse too many things just fell into place. Things have settled down now since school in over and looking forward to the summer and spending time with Evan at the swim club (our first year and he loves it).

[OhToodles!]

Sounds like a great summer you have planned!

[KMB733]

Glad Evan is enjoying swim club!!