Vidalia is an easy hour and a half drive from Savannah, directly West on I-16. The "main event" of the festival is the air show headlined by the famous Navy flying team "The Blue Angels". We left the house at 9am to make sure we had plenty of time prior to the 12pm. start of the show. Getting off the Vidalia exit, you know you are in the right neighborhood, because of the unmistakable aroma of onions which fills the air. Our trusty GPS system directed us through town toward the regional airport, but was hardly necessary as a long string of cars was going our way. Too many, as it turned out, because we were stuck in one spot not moving for at least 30 minutes. Time to fire up an alternate route. The cool thing about rural Georgia is that it is honeycombed with dirt back roads that provide "unofficial" ways of arriving at a destination, and most of these little travelled paths are documented in GPS maps. Our alternate route took us behind the airport, less than a quarter mile from the action and had lots of pull offs to choose from. We soon found out we had chosen a good location.

The acts to the Blue Angels included biplane wing walkers, prop planes and jets performing hair-raising and dangerous stunts to the delight of the small crowd that had joined us in our dirt cul-de-sac. With about 20 minutes between acts, there was lots of time to get acquainted with our new best rural friends, discuss the pros and cons of various brands of pick-up truck and learn the proper way to peel a Vidalia (a seven year-old showed us how).

Then there was a massive roar from the airport followed by quite a surprise to this air show newbie. Rising above our horizon was a massive C130 prop driven transport plane powered to a crazy angle by two rockets attached to the fuselage. The noise and spectacle were astounding to say the least. But.... It was all over so fast I did not capture a single frame of the event on a day of over 300 exposures. The decisive moment still lives and we have to be ready for it!

After an additional 20 minute intermission, we heard another massive roar and this time I was ready. One great thing about the F18 Hornet going about a million miles an hour...they can't make a really tight turn (not like the biplane which turns on a dime). This meant that the formations were bound to fly directly overhead after making a pass on the airport runway. (Clearly the show was directed to the folks right at the airport, but something made me just as happy to be a little distant.) The compositions from that vantage point were much to my liking and some of the more back lit images turned out the best.

The Vidalia onion festival made a perfect day trip. Roadside onion rings, back road exploring and a great air show were highlights you just don't do every day. The traffic was a bummer, but served as a great reminder why we're down here in the first place. We were in high cotton.