Riverside Airshow 2011

C-17 Globemaster II

 So Saturday morning I woke up to loud planes flying over my house around noon. I guess that means I should have been awake already with an alarm like that, but I wasn't. The boyfriend, however, was grumbling in his sleepy voice, "Why are there more loud planes than usual?" ... & then the light bulb in my head flipped on. Oh yeah! The Riverside Airshow!

When I said that the boyfriend immediately got out of bed and was like "WHAT!!?? Why didn't you tell me! We have to go!" ... long story short. We went.

Also, it was FREE!! (parking was $10, but you could find a spot down the street & walk). The boyfriend opted to pay the $10 instead though. I also read it was the 19th Annual Airshow. I had no idea we had Airshow's here... & I've lived here pretty much my whole life. Whoops.

These 2 pictures of the C17 ... wow. So huge. Watching it take off home later in the day was really cool; lift off is the best part of course. It circled past once as well, but in the air so huge and far above it looked slow. Still cool though.

So we spent the day walking amid the different planes parked, watched a lot of planes do neat tricks I couldn't possibly name for you. Though they flew upside down & did sharp turns and loops. One pilot even turned the engine off in mid air and glided himself to landing. That one was pretty crazy.

C-17 Globemaster II

We also had lunch at the Airport Cafe, even though there were food booths everywhere. Unless you brought your own chairs to sit on there was nowhere to sit and eat the booth food.

So Airport Cafe seemed like the best option, plus we could sit outside and continue to enjoy the planes doing tricks above us. The food was actually really good, the only downside being the cup of chili we ordered. I can't even honestly call it chili, it was like a bean and ground beef soup. Seriously. It didn't even taste bad, it just tasted bland and had no flavor to it whatsoever.

Corvette... old one

Lincoln with suicide doors

Finally we ended up near the car show area, which I thought was awesome. Usually the boyfriend loves cars, but his love was devoted to the planes for that day. The only car he really liked was this Lincoln. I'm a Corvette girl myself.

I saw Tiger's on cars twice

Military helicopter for Marines

 Anyways, the event ended around 4pm and walking out we saw these military vehicles and flying machines. The tiger I saw twice. He had been driving a car earlier.

The day came to us unexpectedly, but we were both happy to find something free to do that also brought with it the good memories of childhood. The boyfriend and I fondly remembered going to air shows as kids and watching the Blue Angels fly overhead and looking at different planes and toys with our fathers.

I'm now looking forward to next year's Riverside Airshow :)