July 14th, 2001

I wake up early and get ready to head out for the beach. I plan on trying to get home early so I can visit with Mimi and Papa some today as well.

I should explain about the Blue Angels airshow. They do a show here every year... in fact they are based out of the Naval Air Station here locally. They're a team of 6 jet fighters and two backup jets and an equal number of pilots who do some really insane aerial acrobatics.

Whenever they do a show in Pensacola anywhere from 150-200 thousand people flood into Pensacola Beach to watch the show. It's insane... I really can't convey exactly how crazy this is. ALL parking on the island(Pensacola Beach is a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico) is filled... and people then begin to park everywhere... all on the sides of the roads, up on the grass, in the medians, everywhere. The beaches become packed... damn near every square inch of sand has someone sitting on it. Traffic is evil... it backs up for miles. The only way to avoid it is to get on the island early and leave before the show ends... then you can beat most of the traffic.

I get there 3 hours before the show starts... 5 hours before the Blue Angels will fly. It still takes me 45 minutes to get onto the island... and I have to park a 1/4 mile away from where my aunt and uncle are staying. From my grandparents, it usually only take about 10-15 mins to get to the beach.

The show itself consists of an assortment of planes before the Blue Angels come out. A couple years ago they had a Stealth Fighter fly in the show. This year a B-1 Bomber does several fly bys along the coast... there's also a Mig, a variety of WW II era prop planes, 2 biplanes... one of which has some guy doing headstands on the wings.

I find Uncle Pete and Aunt Terry up in their hotel room along with my cousins Dayton and Allison. I'm almost able to walk right up to them without them recognizing me... my bleached hair totally throws them off. I visit with all of them for a while... it's been several years since I've seen Allison... she lives out in California with her mom, Uncle Pete is divorced and remarried Terry a few years back. She's a sweetheart... she loves photography and has bought all sorts of cameras and computer equipment to play with. She's actually quite proficient on the computer as well. She shows me her latest aquisitions. In fact, all the pictures from today came from her Olympus digital camera. Allison is somewhat shy around me... I don't think she remembers me or something. Hard to say.

Me and Uncle Pete go around the side of the hotel and watch the traffic. It's backed up to near standstill as far as the eye can see. It's bad. Me and him jaw at each other while a group of little girls next to us keeps yelling "Hi hottie!" at all these little boys that walk by. That seems sort of wrong for some reason.

Then I go for a walk along the beach before the show starts... there's been a lot more developement since I was there last... more hotels, condos... etc... etc. Doesn't appear to be a whole lot of public beach left. I also notice that the dunes that used to be so prominent on the island have been beaten down by hurricanes Erin and Opal and still have yet to fully recover.

I get back to the hotel about 30 minutes before the warmup show. It goes on for a couple of hours, with the aforementioned planes doing fly-bys and various stunts. Then the Blue Angels arrive.

There's nothing quite like watching an airshow like this on the beach. The planes thunder overhead, jet engines roaring to near deafening levels. The planes fly in tight formations, nearly wingtip to wingtip. The fly at each other at insane speeds and come within feet of colliding. One of them skims across the pier, barely missing it.

Again, this is something you have to see to believe.

In the process of watching this airshow I get an unholy sunburn. I'm going to be hating life the next few days.

I leave about 10 minutes before the show ends and make a beeline to the bridges leading off the islands. I manage to beat most of the traffic and make very good time getting off. As I leave, the Blue Angels do one of their closing stunts which involves them coming in from different directions and criss-crossing in the air above your head. Just wild.

I get back to my grandparents and clean up... then proceed to slather myself with Solarcaine. I'm red like a lobster, and pretty beat. I help Mimi with some things with her computer and pretty much take it easy the rest of the afternoon... then head to bed early still smarting from the sun.

Not sure what plane that is... probably one of the biplanes.

Here they come!

Check out how close they are... some are inverted. Just amazing.

There they go!

This is one of their "chicken" maneuvers... where they fly at each other and they do a slight barrel roll and barely avoid crashing into each other.

Up we go, into the wild blue yonder...

And... BREAK!

Where in the hell are they?

Coming in from the right!

Cousin Dayton

Stylin' Uncle Pete.