Happy Friday!
I have three images for today. Interesting day yesterday. I had to take my car in for some enhancements and had to have it there at 7:00 a.m. I don’t like having to get up early or at a certain time anymore since retirement. 🙂
So, since I didn’t have transportation and Jeanne was tied up for most of the day I didn’t plan on any activities surrounding President Trump’s arrival in Dubuque. My car got finished sooner than expected so I got it back around 12:30 p.m. What I really wanted to do was get a picture of Air Force 1 so I headed for the airport.
I knew of a position that would give me a great viewpoint of the airport and I was pretty sure it would be available. Duh! Every road even close to the airport was blocked off and I couldn’t get anywhere because of the President’s motorcade was expected shortly. Darn!
Obviously I was hoping for the big 747 but should have realized that they probably wouldn’t bring that to a smaller regional airport like Dubuque. Instead he flew in the 757, which is still a large airplane just not as impressive as the Jumbo Jet. 🙂
So, to finish my story, I took some side roads that finally reached highway 151 and then took some gravel roads (even though my car was sparkling clean) trying to find any vantage point where I could see the airport. I saw this vehicle parked on the side of a gravel road and thought, oh great another law enforcement person going to tell me to leave the area. Turned our it was a guy named Kevin and he was a very friendly and gracious individual who invited me to park behind him. He said that with the wind direction he figure the plane would take off on the closest runway to us and we would get a great view.
While we were waiting the President’s motorcade arrived at the airport and it was ten minutes later that a flood of vehicles came by us on the gravel road. Apparently they had been detained while waiting for the motorcade. We were inundated by gravel dust. I was worried about my lens getting dirty and you could feel the grunge from the dust starting to build. Then the plane started moving and nothing else mattered. Many cars stopped and joined our little group to watch. It turned out it was a great vantage point for making some images of Air Force 1.
All images were shot with the Sigma 600 mm lens. Oh and by the was the GDP announcement today was 4.1% 🙂
Enjoy your day and be careful.
