Planes, Fries, and Flowers

Since the weather was so nice last weekend, I decided to take Aggie* to the Andrews AFB Air Show.  Actually, it is now the "Joint Service Open House at Joint Base Andrews", but that seems like a bit of a mouth-full if you ask me.  The military sure does love to make the names of things longer than they really need to be.

Despite the absolutely perfect weather, the show wasn't all that crowded.  We walked around for a little bit, until we found a nice spot of shade under a C-20's horizontal stabilizer, courtesy of the good folks at VR-48.  Note to air show guests:  the brown stuff leaking out of the bottom of the engine nacelle is probably oil.  The blue liquid leaking out of the bottom of the fuselage is most certainly not oil.  You probably shouldn't be touching it.  Or smelling it.

Since we were both hungry, we bought the world's most expensive hotdog and fries, and lunched to the wonderful sounds of P&W Radials and R&R Merlins.  I don't care who you are, but there is nothing in the world like a P-51, wide open, at low altitude.  I need a moment just thinking about it...

In any case, we enjoyed the fries and the shade for about an hour or so, when Aggie announced (just prior to the Raptor demo) that she was ready to go home.

"Don't you want to see some more airplanes?"

"No.  I'm good"

"Are you sure?  I can tell you why the EA-6B refueling probe is installed at an angle.  Or how thrust vectoring works."

"Nah.  I just want to ride on the shuttle bus again."

Oh well, she did put up with it for over 2 hours.  And we did see the Raptor demo while walking back to the bus.  It may have some O2 problems, but that plane did some pretty impressive things.  Also, while it may be stealthy, it sure as heck isn't silent.

At this point, you're probably wondering where all the pictures are.   Honestly, I didn't really take any.  You can find far better pictures of just about anything they had using the good old Google machine. 

After an uneventful ride home, we found The Wife hard at work in the garden. 

Aggie seemed pretty interested, so we got some gardening gloves and joined in the fun.

To be honest, there was more posing than actual digging/planting.  But that's OK.  Working hard is only worthwhile if you look FABULOUS while doing it.  Right?

By now it was time for The Pirate to wake up from her nap, so we grabbed a blanket and some toys to spend some time in the yard.  I don't know about you, but she seemed to enjoy it.  A lot.

I figure this might be a good place for some gratuitous pics of the girls being cute. 

A good time was had by all, and once we're well and truly done planting all the flowers, I'll put up some pictures.

* On Names:
My daughters are Aggie and The Pirate.  Aggie just turned 5, and The Pirate just turned one.  Their Noms du Blog are based on their initials.  Aggie's are AG, and The Pirate's are, well, something pirates say.  I wish they were cooler stories, like one was born in Texas, and the other was born whilst sailing the Spanish Main, but the truth is (as usual) rather mundane.