Depressing news today, AKA a photographic love letter to my favorite place

I got an email this morning from +Fantasy of Flight, my absolute favorite place in Florida, my "Me" place, that they are closing their doors on April 6th.

If you know me at all, you know how depressed this news makes me.

I'd been worried about the attraction for a while, because they had been talking for years about plans for new hangars and a seaplane base out on Lake Agnes, but no construction on either was ever started. 

That, and the owner and founder, Kermit Weeks, had been getting......further and further out there in his speeches for the "future of the attraction", moving it away from the amazing Living Aviation Museum I loved and further towards the Disneyism of many "theme parks" that I have always hated. He even added characters to the environment. I remarked to friends that I would take there that I thought those kind of ideas spelled trouble. Any time you try to change what you are to become something you're not, trouble tends to follow.
Fantasy of flight, one of the WORLD CLASS Aviation destinations, started to try and become a theme park, and that was the start of the end. So, in memorium of my absolute favorite place in Florida, please enjoy a few of my fave shots taken over the last 12 years.

 I'm going to go mourn the loss of a place I truly loved.