Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Air Force Marathon, Part 2, Flying Things

So we arrived at 6:30 in the morning for Eric's race. It was still dark out, and the sun rose as we were being bussed (no easy task withe all 4 of us AND the stroller, and a bazillion other people) from one end of Wright Patterson Air Force Base where we parked to the other where the race was.

As we were waiting in line for the restroom, (you know 10,000 people ALL gotta pee at the same time before the race begins), 2 parachuters jumped out of planes. One had a flag with the POW MIA-never forgotten flag, and the other the American Flag. They managed to land right by the Starting Line, applause broke out and it was awesome.



Even hearing the National Anthem performed by a young woman simply singing without fanfare or tiddly-poos and extra frufru was just beautiful.

Someone made the comment, "Even the geese are flying in formation."



There were a couple of old planes flying around, the first the parachuters jumped off of, then this fella went over us a couple times.



But the most powerful were the Fly-Overs. I had to ask someone what they were, they said F-16's. Two of them buzzed over just before the Marathon started. Both boys looked up, not sure if they should be scared or not. It shook everything on the ground, and those bad boys moved so fast they were long gone and didn't even show up on my first camera picture. They flew over again an hour later when the half marathon was starting, and I got to see the orange glow of their burners. . That woke Sam up from his sound sleep morning nap, his eyes pink and his hands shaking. That one scared the snot out of him! They came around a third time, but I don't think they used All the Juice, just Some, because this time I was able to keep it together enough for a picture.



Eric told me that as he was waiting for the run to start when the first Fly Over occurred, as everyone was ooo-ing and ahhh-ing, the guy next to him said, "That's the Sound of Freedom."

Amen.

1 comments:

SuperSillyAunt said...

Awesome. That place is my favorite! I've got a 'thing' for F-16s:)