It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's.........

It is amazing to this olelongrooffan the amount of air traffic visible from the veranda of the Taj Mahal. Seldom a day passes that at least one and often several military helicopters fly along the coast shuttling who knows what between Patrick Air Force Base to the south and the Jacksonville Naval Air Station to the north.

I am sure the fact there are three flight schools within 10 miles of the Taj Mahal also has a great deal to do with the number of private planes I spot on a regular basis. That and two fly-in communities nearby.

Then, of course, there are the planes towing advertising banners behind flying up and down the coastline hawking everything from Geico Insurance (probably need to double click on the following image to see it)to the latest WWF event at the Ocean Center next weekend. Sorry Counters, no image of it but it helped spawn this post.

Even vintage military aircraft play a part. On July 4th, TheGoodAttorney and this olelongrooffan were celebrating Happy Hour on the front veranda of the Taj Mahal and we spotted these 4 P-51 Mustangs. TheGoodAttorney commented, "longroof, you have great karma. We are witnessing our own private air show here at the Taj Mahal. At my home we wouldn't even know this was going on."
I felt pretty honored at that statement especially coming from someone I respect. It was much like getting a compliment from one of my brothers.
We even moved our expensive, almost teak-wood-like, hey, I said almost, lawn furniture out from the covered veranda to the patio to soak up the show.
It was pretty cool. They stuck around for a bit and then took off for points south.

Then, there are
these jets flying over a race out at the Daytona International Speedway and later over the Taj Mahal.

Then there was the time thesungoddess alerted us to the Shuttle for the Space Shuttle, and yeah horsefarmer, we saw it even though this unprepared olelongrooffan neglected to provide photographic evidence of that sighting.

Then there was the time I didn't get to see the Goodyear blimp down in MickeyMouseLand.

Well Counters, this olelongrooffan met up with Manuel Labor on this Chamber of Commerce kind of Sunday to finish up a project and acquire some photographic evidence to get to the owners. As my super-duper sophisticated email provider only lets me send two, maybe three, images at a time, I usually load them on to a blog I have just for that purpose and then email them a link.

As this olelongrooffan was doing just that this afternoon on the veranda of the Taj Mahal, I heard a distinctive sounding engine emanating from the north and out along the coastline. I immediately knew a treat was heading my way albeit two blocks away above the beach and went inside the massive Taj Mahal to get my image taker.

And man was I in for a treat. Other than the Shuttle for the Shuttle, this was the coolest sighting of flying machines this olelongrooffan has witnessed down on my beach.

Yeah Counters, it is one of the Goodyear Blimps, live and in person. I have seen them before out at several events at the Daytona International Speedway but those times there is a multitude of stimuli that the sightings get kind of overlooked.

Not today though, I know that Blimp pilot decided to fly along my beach just for this olelongrooffan.
Ain't I lucky?

And know that seeing cr*p like this and being able to share it with you Counters that really allows this olelongrooffan to

Celebrate Life.