I have a “bucket list” of things I want to photograph. That’s normal…right? Well, one for me was the Pacific War Memorial on the Marine Corps base (you know the one, the military men are raising an American Flag.)

It’s weirdly awkward to get to… there’s no sidewalk and no parking. Well, there’s parking, but it’s for “authorized personal only” (I’m not supposed to get in trouble as an officer spouse so I air on the side of caution here). Also, the sunlight is behind it any time after, say, 10am. It’s also generally cloudy. But, in light of knocking things off my list, I decided to just do it on the way to something else I was doing on base Saturday. I parked at a nearby mini mart and gas station and walked the side of the road (you’ll see in the pictures) at about 7am. Cars have to drive slow anyway and it was quiet, so I felt safe.

Despite not having ideal lighting conditions, I had an added bonus of a couple things. One, there was a tribute to the fallen Marines from Afghanistan. Two, the American flags were up in the median for 9/11. Here is a photo dump of some of my favorite images I was able to capture. I’m going to let the photos speak for themselves, but you know how to reach me if you have questions.

The whole area, both sides of the road, is basically a “museum” of military airplanes. So I grabbed a couple shots of those as well. It’s really a shame this area isn’t more accessible! It’s so strange.

I then headed toward my next destination, volunteering to pull invasive species. I happened to get caught during colors and driving right by them no less. When this is happening, all activity on base stops, like even driving, until you can’t hear the trumpets anymore. The first time I experienced this was on Hanscom Air Force Base with Brian, and thank God I did… because you know how an impatient New England driver would react being stuck behind some car at a stop sign for a second longer than necessary without realizing what was happening. The flag was raised to half mast.