I’m back from my journey to Washington, D.C. Along with going to the beach, exhibiting at the Taking Action for Animals conference, and seeing my family, I got to endure the reality of air travel. Here are a few photo highlights from my trip:
My sister and I walked from Fenwick Island to Bethany Beach, Delaware (and back), which according to MapQuest is 12.44 miles. These are beach umbrellas at the Sea Colony. We were able to get off the beach via the Colony, but the snotty old bat at the kiosk wouldn’t let us back through, so we had to walk along the road for a while before we could find beach access again.
On the second day, we went to the Ocean City Boardwalk, which looks remarkably the same as it did in 1979, which I think is the last time I was there.
On our way home, we stopped by Assateague State Park. (No, we didn’t see any wild ponies.)
Saturday morning, we set up for the conference. (This is my sister putting stuff out on our table.) We had copies of Happy Hound, Happy Tabby, Vegan Success for sale, and information about the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals.
Here’s me talking to an attendee.
Me with Frank the Feral, the mascot for Alley Cat Allies.
My journey back from the east was a lot less fun thanks to numerous airline problems. I got up at 3 am to get to Dulles airport (thanks to my sister who was willing to slog out to Virginia in the wee hours). After making it through security, we Denver-bound passengers got on the plane and were raring to go at 5:40 am. But we sat for an hour on the plane at the gate because of a “maintenance issue.”
After an hour, the maintenance issue was apparently deemed hopeless, so we were instructed to get off the plane and get on a different plane. That plane made it out of the gate anyway, but there was a weather delay. So we sat on the runway for 2 hours. We finally got into Denver at 11:40 am, which meant I missed my original connection (at 9:11 am) and the rebooked connection at 11:20 am. So I had to sit in Denver for 6 hours to wait for the 5:58 pm plane. That plane also sat on the runway for about 45 minutes before it could go (more weather). The end result was that I got into Spokane at about 8 pm. Add the 2 hour drive home and well, I arrived here at 10 pm Pacific time or 1 am Eastern, meaning that yes, it took me a grand total of 22 hours to get home. Ugh.