Shipwrecked!: Highway to the Danger Zone

(come on, did you think I would have titled a post about Miramar ANYTHING else?)

We went to the MCAS Miramar (aka Top Gun aka Fightertown USA aka Surface of the F**king Sun) Air Show today. It was hot, it was hot, IT. WAS. HOT. Like 100 degrees and not a hint of shade anywhere ever kind of hot. But even the probability of melting into the flight line pavement didn't keep us from second guessing our decision to drive ten minutes north to the show.

When we got there and parked in Wherever the Hell Bumfudge Parking Lot A, they told us we could wait 30 mins for the shuttle bus to pick us up or walk 25 mins across base to the show. Aww hell, what's a 25 minute walk? Let's hoof it boys.

It was not a 25 minute walk. It was like a 45 minute walk. Whatever lying bastard told me that is was 25 minutes must have walked it on stilts. Double lying points for telling me it was 25 minutes in 100 degree heat. Which made it all the more awful with two kids in tow. Liar. LIAR!!

P.S. I'm not sure I've ever been on a military base as big as MCAS Miramar. And I've been on a few. Or maybe it just seemed enormous because I was walking the length of it. In the heat. With two kids.

By the time we got to the flightline where the show was, the patriot jets (L-39s) were performing. Then we saw a little bi-plane do some pretty badass tricks, a harrier jet, a few other planes, then the C-130 Fat Albert, and then the headliner Blue Angels. The kids' faces were priceless They were beside themselves with happiness.

After the Blue Angels, we left the bleachers for what I thought would be a short intermission before the twilight show to find an ATM so I could buy us more water (all three huge water bottles we had brought with were bone dry by then) and as-promised toy fighter jets. Everything was cash only, so we walked around the enormous show area, and all five ATMs we had found were out of cash (insert eyeball twitching here). By then the kids (and I) were beside themselves from being overheated, dehydrated and disappointed, and so I made an executive decision that it was time to get the hell out of there before we had to be carted away in an ambulance (people were dropping like flies from heat stroke). So we walked the 1.3 miles (I checked) back to our car, hot and miserable. And drove straight to Sonic and got three of the biggest Cherry Limeades they had for dinner. Worth it.

We might go back tomorrow, because we're gluttons for punishment. And we like airplanes. And we'll pack cash and extra water.

Photo dump! Sorry, all super ugly cell phone shots. Didn't bother with the beast camera today.

Endnote: We sat in bleachers, you know, the kind that has gaps behind your feet that drop off into the abyss? By the end of the day, we lost a water bottle, Calen's sunglasses and Camden's toy airplane. Good heavens.