We were sitting on the front porch of the cabin where a lake breeze was keeping us cool when we caught the sound of airplane engines buzzing overhead, big engines, and lots of them. I stepped down off the porch to see if I could spot them through the breaks in the trees but they were moving too quickly and I couldn’t quite fix the direction they were coming from, so I headed down to the shoreline where I could get out from under the trees by walking out onto the dock. Jack-Jack followed not far behind.

I spotted them as I was walking out to the end of the dock, a flight of four planes in a tight Missing Man formation, passing low over the trees to the east, moving very fast. Jack caught up with me just before they dipped beneath the trees, and I helped him spot them as they popped back into view headed north. They were breaking out of formation one by one and appeared to be turning to head south, so I took a chance and told Jack, “Watch the trees right there,” and pointed at the north end of the lake. “They’re going to come right for us.”

And damned if they didn’t, all four of them, passing low over the lake, P-51 Mustangs, two with bright red tails and a third with a banana-yellow tail. All of them but the leader wore black and white D-Day invasion stripes across the wings and up their sides. They turned again and made one more pass over the lake, obviously showing off for somebody, before heading south again, probably to return to Oshkosh where the EAA is holding their annual fly-in.

Not our usual morning on the lake.