Every Columbus Day weekend, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard send their ships, planes, and sailors to San Francisco. Although it gives the men and women in uniform a well-deserved chance to blow off steam in the original city of sin (trust me, you can find weirder stuff here than Las Vegas), it's also a blatant attempt to recruit more bodies for the military. Apart from the political, social, environmental, etc. implications of Fleet Week (I won't do it today), it's a lot of fun. And crowded. The air show and rehearsals over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday culminate in demonstrations from the Blue Angels and besiege the city with earsplitting, window-rattling, car-alarm triggering fly-bys for four hours or so each day. It's incredibly obnoxious (and slightly unsettling) when you're not watching the planes but awe-inspiring when you are. I want to share a few of the photos I took while watching the air show on Saturday with friends, who were kind enough to bring a grill and delicious grub. You have to have a much better camera than mine to really do it justice, but it was pretty darn cool.
The opening planes, with patriotic jet trails.
Beautiful weather meant that a lot of people came out to watch.
The support plane for the Blue Angels, making a low pass over the Bay.
The Blue Angels' finale.
