Fun takes flight at TIA

High or low, the rush of having a massive airplane fly right by you can be exhilarating.

"Everybody loves planes," Janet Zink, director of communications at Tampa International Airport, said. "There's nothing more exciting than watching a plane take off and land."

It can be especially exciting for pint-sized plane watchers.

"We have families all the time that come over to the airport, go up to the ninth floor of our parking garage and get a great view of the planes," Zink said.

So we thought we would check it out. This past weekend I brought my two children, Cameron who's 4 years old and Katie who just turned two, and we spent the morning there.

It's one of the ways you can fight boredom this summer with your kids. We weren't alone. There were several families.

As each plane traveled down the runway and up into the air, my son Cameron would say, "He's going to blast off. It's going fast."

Cameron swore each plane was a space shuttle.  Katie - well she preferred running and jumping around - as opposed to watching planes.

"Kids really get a kick out of it," Zink said. "They may not be able to get on the plane, but it's really cool to watch them take off and land. It's really pretty marvelous.

But there is actually plenty for kids to do at the airport.

"In our main terminal we have a mind works store where there are Legos to play with," Zink said.

And that we did, too. We tried out the Legos, toys and, well, just running around the main terminal.

"It's not a bad place to spend an afternoon with the kids, and it doesn't cost a lot of money," Zink said.

We never made it on the actual runway, but there were plenty of planes. And the kids did plenty of running.