Jeanie and I had a really nice 4th of July...
We slept in an relaxed in the morning.
Around noon, we got up, dressed, and headed out to the beach for the 29th Annual Amelia Island Plantation Air Show and 4th of July Celebration.
Jeanie packed a couple of coolers with drinks, dinner, our cool backpack folding beach chairs, our cool beach tent, and a "just in case" beach umbrella.
We drove to the American Beach beach access, and then drove as far south on the beach as we could. That left about a one mile walk to the Plantation. For the afternoon show, we only took our chairs and a bottle (each) of water. The chairs are really cool. They are light weight, and have padded backpack straps for carrying the chairs. In addition, they have a large pouch for carrying "stuff," and even have a built-in drink holder.
The air show was quite good. The show was opened by a sky diver carrying the world's largest American Flag flown under canopy (5000 square feet). There were a couple of L39 jets, a P51, an SIAI Marchetti flown by Debbie Gary, and my favorite performer, Greg Koontzflying his Super Decathalon.
Weather was wonderful. It wasn't too hot, there was a nice breeze, and just a scattering of puffy white cumulous clouds.
The absolute highlight of the air show came at 2:38 PM.
What better event could one ask for at an air show than to see a shuttle launch!
I say 2:38 because I figure it took less than a minute before Discovery was high enough and down-range enough for us to see. It was absolutely amazing. From our vantage point on the beach, we could not only see the exhaust trail all the way down to the horizon, but could actually see the yellow-red glow of the solid fuel boosters. Talk about your July 4th "rocket's red glare!"
After the show, we walked back to the truck, and got out the beach tent and set it up. Set up this time was much easier than the first time. We enjoyed the afternoon swimming and sitting in the tent. Around 5:00 PM, we ate our dinner of bar-b-que chicken, potato salad, cheese and grapes.
After dinner, we decided to change into dry clothes. Even though the rest room / showers were relatively close, we decided to drive, which turned out to be a fortunate decision, as a rain shower blew in from the ocean just moments after we had finished packing everything up into the truck.
Timing worked out just great. The rain shower blew over just as we finished showering / changing, and by the time we drove back to our spot on the beach, the sky was once again blue.
We walked back to the plantation, which was now pretty empty. The evening show was pretty much a repeat of the afternoon's, with the addition of Bob Murphy flying his YAK-7 (and the omission of the shuttle ascent). The show was quite pretty, set against the backdrop of the evening sky. Rather than start the show with the parachute / flag jump, the show ended with it - which by the time it occurred, was after dark. This was apparently planned, as the Plantation had a huge search light which they used to illuminate the flag on its way down, which was pretty cool. Jeanie remarked that she doubted that many people in the crowd were truly able to appreciate how challenging that jump must have been.
The evening was capped with a nice fireworks display. As with last year, Jeanie and I were amazed at just how many other fireworks displays we were able to see up and down the beach.
All in all, we couldn't have asked for a nicer day.
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Posted by David at July 05, 2006 03:16 PM