Acting Without the Drama

October 17, 2009.  I know I said that I’d talk more about blowing past protectors today, but I realized that I had pretty much said all that I wanted to say about it, at least for now.

Instead, I’m going to talk about going to Edwards Air Force Base.  There was an air show today, and we took the kids out to see it.

The trip out was supposed to take about an hour.  It took four.  And a half.

When we got out to about a mile or two away from the exit, traffic slowed down to a crawl.  We spent the next three and a half hours creeping along, straining our eyes to see the planes flying off in the not-so-far distance.  We managed to hear the planes breaking the sound barrier, which was the first of the events.  We saw some of the aerial displays from over the hill.  But we were still stuck in the car with the kids starting to bicker with one another.

So I started a sing-a-long.  I know, I know… but it totally worked.  The boys were dismissive at first, but totally got into it as I started bellowing out tunes with my little girl (she thought the whole thing was awesome).  We had a great time until I ran out of tunes.

Eventually we got there.  It looked like some kind of refugee camp or something out of Independence Day.  We were all parking out in the middle of nowhere, then walking across a baked desert wasteland to get to a bunch of big old canvas tents, where we were strip-searched.  Okay, they only wanded us, but still.

We were then loaded onto buses (about this time, I was beginning to wonder if this were some extremist plot for population control) and shipped out to the air show.  We got there three hours after the show started, with about two hours or so remaining.  My wife was pretty convinced that the day was shot.  And, in her defense, it was about 500 degrees out there on the blacktop.

But then something amazing happened.  We started watching the planes fly.

And, man, did they fly.  They were doing things that I’m pretty certain would’ve given Newton a conniption fit.

We watched men and women take to the air and do amazing things.  Things that only birds should be able to do.  And it was magnificent.

Sure, it was basically NASCAR in the air, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen that many halter tops in one place in my life, but you should’ve seen my middle son’s face.  He wants to be a pilot.  I’m pretty sure that there will be no talking him out of it now.

He was glowing when we came home.

Yeah, I’ll take four and a half hours in a hot car any day for that.

Up, up and away! 

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