Personal Air Show

My first day of summer vacation was getting off to a slow and lazy start. A two hour sleep in was followed by iced coffee on the patio. I was catching up on some of my favorite blogs, thinking about what my first summer vacation blog post should be about, and then this happened:

Yes, literally a loud rumbling throughout the house was enough to get me to hop out of my chair, set down my coffee, and run to the roof deck just in time to see a Blue Angel pass directly over me at probably only a mere 100-200 feet overhead. I raced back down two flights of stairs, grabbed my camera and enjoyed the show for the next hour.

Unfortunately, none of the planes got as close as the first one I glimpsed, but they were still flying by at a very close distance. So close that if you look hard enough, you can make out the pilot's helmet!

It's not every day that you get to see a full formation Blue Angels flyover from your roof top deck. What is the reason for all of this? This week just happens to be the "Sailabration" for the War of 1812 Bicentennial. As part of the celebration, there will be an full air show this weekend (yes, more rumbling overhead for us all weekend long) and a fleet of tall ships also arrived along the harbor yesterday. I'm not one to be very patriotic, but I am a bit of a history nerd (no wonder one of the classes I teach is U.S. History) so this is all pretty exciting. A pretty neat start to summer vacation, wouldn't you say?