WOW!!! That’s about all I can say… well.. no… I can say a lot more… Here’s how the day went…

First off.. it was COLD and WINDY!! We were all supposed to go on Saturday, but the weather forecasters kept saying there was going to be rain and thunderstorms that day.. and there was no way we were going to take the girls out in that mess… Everyone would have been miserable… BUT… there was no rain, and there were no thunderstorms… DARN IT!!! We went on Sunday instead… since we all had made plans for Saturday, due to the impending Thunderstorms… Ohhh well.. So.. back to the cold and windy.. The sun was out, so that was nice… We got there just about 1030a… Parked and got in line…. Luckily I had already purchased our tickets at the McClellan Aerospace Museum on Friday, so the line to get in was much shorter than the one to buy tickets at the gate…

Once in, you have to walk down the looooooong row of food and souvenir vendors just to get to any of the static displays. They had all kinds of airplanes… They had Old planes, new planes, propeller planes, jet planes, planes you could buy, planes you could buy a ride on.. They even had planes you could climb in and planes you could walk through… It was heaven for a person that loves planes… LOL..

After spending about 3 hours wandering around, and talking to some of the vendors, or presenters, we finally decided to make our way back to the van for lunch… We had packed sandwiches, chips, cookies, drinks.. everything you need for a great picnic lunch… There was no way we were going to spend $8 for a hamburger and bag of chips… We did that the first year, and decided to not do that again.. Anyway… we got out to the car, and set up our camp chairs, and just as we started eating, we heard the first plane start flying… We took our time eating, and eventually moved our seats over to a grassy area at the edge of the parking lot… We weren’t sure what was going to happen with some of the performances since the wind was so crazy… I don’t think they knew what was going on either. There were a couple of large chunks of down time. Once they got the planes going on a roll, it was awesome! Team Oracle did some really crazy maneuvers… We saw a few other planes, and then we heard propellers…. It was the Blue Angels’ C-130… lovingly called “Fat Albert”… This was a first for me… They didn’t have this plane there the first year that the Blue Angels were there… They took it up into the air, did a couple of passes, and then brought it back down. Just after landing, we hear a loud noise… and then we see the plane taxiing over towards our end of the airfield… One of the wheels had popped! Yikes! Can’t imagine what it’s like jacking that plane up to change a tire….

After a few minutes, we see the beautiful Blue and Yellow jets coming around and lining up for take-off… The Blue Angels went up and gave us an outstanding show… I was actually able to catch a bunch of awesome pics… I still can’t get over how close they get to one another in the air… They are totally amazing… I was having so much fun taking pictures, I was surprised when they started coming in for a landing.. I didn’t realize that time had gone by so quickly.. We packed up and got back into the van to head out… Now this is where it got yucky… We were stuck in the parking lot for 45 mins… This was weird because last year, it took us no time to get out of the parking lot after the show… but this year was horrible… I have no idea where they had us exit, but we actually ended up on a dirt road, going past a yucky junk yard… it was totally confusing, and a horrible PITA… People were cutting people off, squeezing people out, and basically being crazy drivers just to get out single file down a dirt road… If anyone reads this from the Air Show.. Whatever you did in 2007 worked!!!

All in all it was an amazing day… The girls were tired and totally crashed when we got home… They had a quick dinner, a bath and went straight to sleep… No arguing, no fussing.. just sweet, peaceful sleep… I got all of the photos off of the camera and onto my computer…

If you’re interested in checking out some of the best photos we took, please check out my Picasa Gallery… I really had to narrow it down… I was a little shutter-happy, and we have around 1200 photos in total… Enjoy!!!

Had to mention this! It’s coming up soon! And this year… THE BLUE ANGELS ARE BACK!!!!! This is a must see event!!! The Blue Angels rocked the show in ’06!

Hosted By: California Capital Airshow
When: Sunday Mar 16, 2008
at 10:00 PM
Where: Mather Airport
Mather, California|5 95655
United States
Description:
California Capital Airshow

Click Here To View Event & Buy Tickets!