Let's see your CB1100 out on the road!

[Gone in 60]

This was Sunday morning on the way to the museum on the 405.

The Goodyear Blimp was getting ready to take off from its flying field. Unfortunately, the GoPro couldn't get a clear enough shot of it, as I was planning to use it as my snarky entry into the monthly photo contest.

I was going to claim that a blimp is propeller-driven, and while the rules stipulated that helicopters didn't count, there was no mention of blimps.

Your story reminds me of when I first moved to Miami, FL, from Kansas at the tender age of 16. I was driving our '52 Buick to my Mom's office to have lunch with her. As I drove through Miami, suddenly this very large, silver UFO rose slowly from the neighborhood to my right. I had no idea what in the world I was witnessing until it got high enough that I could make out that it was the Goodyear blimp, which in those days was anchored in the old Orange Bowl stadium, which was in the heart of Miami. That was the first time I ever saw a blimp, but not the last. And it was my first and last UFO sighting as well.

Ha! The California blimp field is right off of the 405 Freeway in the South Bay Curve, a section that can have very heavy traffic. When the blimp lands, it's pretty dramatic, as it has to point down at the ground and power its way down, it doesn't descend gently like an airplane.

A friend of mine had moved to the area recently, and was stuck in traffic in that area. He called me, with a panic in his voice:

"Dude, you won't believe this! I'm in Carson, watching the Goodyear blimp - it's crashing!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! It's pointed straight down, and its coming down!"

"Huh. Are there a bunch of guys standing on the ground below it, like they're waiting for it to come down?"

"Yeah!"

"Are there ropes hanging down from the blimp?"

"Yeah... wait... the guys are grabbing the ropes... never mind."