The Air Show

So, after the car show I came back home and called my daughter Nikki. For those of you that may not know this her son "Ducky" loves "hairplanes" and she thought it would be great to take him to the Air Show which would take place Saturday and Sunday at Luke Air Force Base. Have you noticed through previous posts how everything is like really close to me. Well, the air force base is no exception. Luke Air Force Base is only about 15 minutes away from where I live.

Nikki came and picked me up at around 12:30 p.m. I had never been to the show although every time they have one we get to see a couple of flyovers. We are not exactly under their flight area but they do stray and fly over all the cities surrounding the Air Force Base waking people up. Those jets can pretty loud. So, I told her to go down Indian School to Litchfield Park and then towards the base. Well, as soon as we turned on Litchfield traffic was at a stand still.

It took us almost 45 minutes to get to the parking lot. A very dusty parking lot at that, and they even charged us $10.00 dollars. A parking attendant told us that the lines to get in were about two hours long. Nikki and I just walked towards the entrance following the people. The said the estimated that some 70,000 people would show up for the show, now I didn't really count them all but I think there were more than that. The place was crowded.

Oh, and lier, lier pants of fire, that attendant must have been hallucinating since it was hot on Saturday. We got to the entrance and it took us maybe a minute to get in, OK two minutes because Nikki actually had to dump all her purse contents on the table at check in. After all it is an air force base we were going into.




Oh, I failed to mention that Michelle told me to go ahead and take Diego to the show as she didn't want him to miss out. So, as soon as we walked in and the kids saw the many planes and helicopters on display the word "awesome" became a fixture word for the whole day.

All day long the small planes went up and did their thing, from loops, to cork screws, to free falls etc. etc. etc. I myself had only been to an air show only once when I was a kid in Mexico. My dad took us to see the Blue Angels and I never ever forgot that experience even though I must have been five or six years old. So I really wanted for "Ducky" and Diego to enjoy the experience.



While they were inside a helicopter that was on display and we were fighting with the "Mother from Hell" that actually wanted to pick a fight with "Ducky" and Diego for "cutting in" (the bitch) a pilot was doing maneuvers not in a jet or small plane, but on a helicopter. It was pointed out that this is one of the few helicopter pilots that makes loops and acrobatic maneuvers, and that he is very good at what he does. After seeing him with my own eyes, I agree he is. What he did was totally defying what a helicopter was built for.

Nikki and I had already walked through the whole thing, we had snapped many pictures, we had seen airplanes to some crazy stuff and we were really not sure as to what to do next. Then I remember that the most important part of the show had not taken place yet. I asked this guy sitting next to us if the Thunderbirds had already performed and then he said no and pointed towards the air field, there they are and they are about to get into their planes.

That was our cue to go and find a shady area so that we could sit to watch the show. We joined hundreds of people sitting under a big canopy actually one of many canopies placed over each plane on display and we sat there. Soon the show started and "Ducky" went from sitting there excited to let me get in my mom's arms, he thought the noise was loud.


We were prepared for that. I had stopped at the store and bought some ear plugs. Once we put a set of earplugs on each kid I can tell you they enjoyed the rest of the show. Since they were wearing ear plugs all their "wows" and "awesomes" were a little bit louder. lol



The show was great. I was really glad to be able to see it live again after so many years, but obviously the highlight for me was to see it through my grand kid's eyes. That certainly made my day. Spending the day with Nikki was really great too.

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