Eggs Away, or not

In our city utilities bill a few weeks ago was a flyer for spring Georgetown events and there was a small paragraph about something called "Eggs Away." The city organizers were revamping the traditional egg hunt into a spectacle at the Georgetown Airport involving a B-25, eggs, and children. So, I thought that might be neat to try out... if nothing else it would be a cool flyover and the boys love planes, old and new. 

So, at about 9:20a yesterday we drove over to the airport. Alan was on shift, so we were Daddy-less. The first red flag went up when we pulled up to a line of cars to get in the gate. From what little I could see from the road leading in, all of the grass areas in and around the airport were packed with cars and everything else looked like a human version of stirred up ant mound. The trouble with younglings, especially smart, sweet, and slightly nerdy ones, is that you just can't turn around and go home after talking about something. So, I ignored my intuition and we parked in the waist deep grass (the first indication that they were not expecting that many people to show up) and bushwhacked our way toward concrete.

We approached the main hangar and taxi area of the airport and there were queues of people. I guess this was designed as a two-parent thing, because they wanted you to break up in age groups, which would require leaving one child... which was a, for a lack of a better word, stupid idea. Anyway, we joined the 3-5 age group line (by line I mean, 4-5 people wide, at least five football fields long). Thankfully we ran into some friends so we had someone to talk to for the next thirty-five or so minutes we would be waiting. Aaron was a trooper and didn't seem to be getting as irritated as all of the adults with the delay and the climbing temperature. Adam too, I don't think he would have spoken at all if I didn't ask him how he was doing every few minutes. "I'm fine mama," was all that I got. He goes in to lazy-man veggitative mode in situations involving a stroller, heat, and crowds. 

The B-25 Devil Dog flew by a few times before the actual egg drop occurred. I lifted Aaron up on my shoulder so that he could see better. He kept asking, "Mama, is that the same plane?" Probably confused about why it needed to circle so much. I thought the actual egg drop was supposed to be a bigger part of the experience... but I couldn't help but visualize what plastic eggs dropped from a plane at a safe-enough altitude would look like once they splattered on the ground and how they could possibly divide the area enough for everyone to participate... but hey, I was being optimistic and succumbing to the herd mentality for the morning. 

The egg drop happened a bit late and most people, although they were watching the plane fly by, missed the eggs falling out the back. I caught it on video and slowed it down a bit, so that you can see just how unsubstantial it was. The remainder of the video is just documenting the chaos... which I'll get to in a bit... 

Once the plane circled a few more times, probably to appease the crowd, it landed and this was as close as it got. Thankfully we've seen it up close before, so it wasn't a big deal. (Sorry for the fuzzy photo, it was so bright I couldn't see through the camera very well).

So we finally get to the area at the end of the taxi strip, where more long grass begins... and there are people going in every direction, strollers parked everywhere, parent-less children running all over, and what looks to be field-day like partitions marked out in the field. There were no eggs in this area. It seemed like the masses were moving toward an area down at the edge of the field, near the trees that surround the airport. I couldn't really make out what was going on, but a few things were certain: judging by the number of people heading back with empty baskets, there were no eggs left; judging by the number of older kids with overflowing baskets, they probably ran out and scooped them all out before anyone else could get there; then clearly there was no limit on the number of eggs per kid. I overheard a woman say the eggs all fell in one strip and there was a bunch of candy spread all over the ground, which confirmed my plastic egg-splatter theory. 


We stopped about half way out there and I squatted down and explained the situation to Aaron. He was confused, but willing to count our losses and head home. He was hot and tired of standing, so that probably helped too. I threw him up on my back and we took off back down the taxi strip toward the masses of people and cars in the distance. A quick photo of what was in front of us...

And behind...

Silly experience. Mind boggling how something that big could go so wrong. On the way out I probably saw a total of five kids with eggs in their baskets, and they were all older. I have some difficulty understanding how a parent could let their kid walk away in that circumstance with forty-some odd eggs in their overflowing basket when so many others had none. But then again, there was no one to tell the herd not to. Thankfully for our boys, it wasn't that big of a deal, but I guess I felt bad for all of those people who waited out there for such a long time to hike out in knee high weeds to nothing. So we finally made it off the airport premises and a few minutes later, back home.


Cooling off at home and away from, well everything involved with a giant, free, children's event... 

The bear Adam is snuggling with was mine as a child. We call him Big Bear.

I told Aaron we'd have an egg hunt in the yard later on after naps. We invited our friends that we saw earlier, who also came out empty handed, to come over for our consolation egg hunt. It was nice and calm, in short green grass, limited bug interaction, guaranteed eggs for each kiddo, and friends, instead of hot grumpy strangers.