Chicago Air and Water Show
The City of Chicago seems to host a lot of free events, and one of these was the air and water show which was all weekend. Basically it is a recruitment drive for the forces, who apparently have had their worst year ever for recruitment so desperately need to garner some interest. They do the whole thing on and over the lake, in front of North Avenue Beach, which is a long stretch of beautiful golden sand.We went on Sunday, having a very early start as the water part of the show started at 9am, so we got the 7.40 train. But plenty of others had done the same thing, and the beach was already absolutely packed when we got there.
Sitting on the beach would have meant not being able to see the water show, so we made our way into the water, joining many others doing the same thing, and stood knee deep in the cool water to watch water-skiers making pyramids by standing on each others shoulders, (I was expecting Jaws to come up behind them for a snack!) and jet-skiers doing stunts and jumps. The sun was already shining and pretty hot, so it was no hardship being in the water.
We then went to the back of the beach to find a spot to sit and watch the air show. The US Air Force paraded many of their planes across the skies, the Army provided some parachutists, and there were a couple of groups of planes doing stunts and synchronised flying, including the Red Barons which is a group of old biplanes. Also they had a Harrier Jet, which got the most interest and biggest cheer of the day, he sped across the sky a couple of times, then hovered right in front of the crowd, turned to face the beach, and flew sideways from one end of the beach to the other, with everyone waving at him. However there was one group missing, the Thunderbirds (I think), as during their performance on Saturday, a piece of the missile rail fell off (luckily they were over water at the time), so they had gone back to base to figure out the problem.
All in all, it was a good day out, sitting on the beach in the hot sunshine with a nice breeze off the water, and seeing some spectacular stunts.
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