Tagged With: Travel

Hot Dog Bun People

Hot Dog Bun People

Hot Dog Bun People

OK, this is a little obscure. On the way to the beach back on July 30, while waiting in traffic on I95 south of Woodbridge, Virginia, we noticed an SUV with two bins and two coolers on the back. In one bin were games and in the other were lots of hot dog buns and a couple (clear) containers of Fruit Loops. They were going faster than we were so naturally we lost track of them.

About 220 miles further along on our trip, we stopped, as we always do, for barbecue at Parkers in Wilson, North Carolina. I dropped mom off and went to park in the only shady spot in the parking lot and guess who was right next to us? The Hot Dog Bun People. I even took a picture showing the back of their car.

Fast forward to today, seven days later. We’re driving west on I-40 out of Wilmington, North Carolina. We are about a hundred miles from Parkers, heading back home. The girls are quiet in the back seat, zoning out, when all of a sudden Dorothy had some sort of seizure. I actually saw the van about the time she did but the rest of the car had no idea what was going on. She was pointing out the window and babbling incoherently in a loud (very) voice.

As you can see from the picture (which matches the picture from last Saturday exactly except one cooler and one bin are gone) we had just been overtaken by… The Hot Dog Bun People.

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BWI Airport

BWI Airport

BWI Airport

Dorothy flew up to Boston on Saturday to go to a wedding on Sunday. She had a busy but fun time visiting with friends and being, in her words, an emotional support animal. She flew home today and we picked her up at BWI at about a quarter past eleven. I took my camera with me because I hadn’t taken any other pictures today. This was taken from the top deck of the parking garage, looking towards the northeast end of the terminal building (Concourse E). I took a few inside, as well and none of them were really anything to write home about, but as I have to post one, here you are.

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DCA Taxi Stand

DCA Taxi Stand

DCA Taxi Stand

Cathy and I went to DCA (also known as Reagan National Airport) early this evening to pick up her cousin and his wife, flying in from the northwest. Traffic was its usual horrendous self. There was an accident on the inner loop with all but one lane blocked by fire trucks and police. That slowed us considerably on the outer loop but boded even worse for our homeward journey. While at the airport I took a very few pictures but they include this one of a taxi stand waiting above Terminal B. I wonder how much change there has been in the taxi business here due to app-based ride-finding services like Lyft and Uber. My guess would be that it’s made a substantial difference but I really don’t know and don’t use either taxis or Lyft/Uber enough to have any feel for the difference in price or level of service.

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Wedding Weekend

Dorothy with Loaded Van

Dorothy with Loaded Van

Our good friend Maria is getting married tomorrow and we drove to southern Virginia this afternoon. We offered to transport a few things so we stopped in northern Virginia to pick up two corn hole games, a croquet set, four trash cans, and 14 plants, plus a few other odds and ends. We had hoped to have my mom’s Toyota minivan but alternator trouble meant we went in the Mercury Villager, instead, which is a bit smaller. We managed to get everything in, although Dorothy had a mandevilla on the end of the back seat with her.

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On The Road (Metaphorically Speaking)

Cathy at LAX

Cathy at LAX

Cathy and I began a ten day trip today, getting up at 3:40, driving to the commuter parking lot on Georgia Avenue and catching the 4:21 bus to BWI airport. That was the beginning of a 23 hour journey spanning four time zones. Our first flight left BWI at 7:00 AM EDT and arrived in Los Angeles at 9:45 PDT. Add three hours to that for the time zone change and we were in the air about 5 hours and 45 minutes. We had an equally long layover in LAX, not leaving until 2:40 for Seattle. We walked nearly two miles from terminal 6 through tunnels under terminal 5 and then up and through terminal 4 to the Tom Bradley International Terminal (a.k.a., Terminal B), walking the length of that (and back). That wore us out but also passed a good bit of time.

This photo, taken from Terminal 6, is of Cathy resting her ankle briefly with a view of “The Theme Building” in the background. We had lunch and then went to our terminal ahead of boarding. You know how in airports there are often announcements where a person is named, but it’s never you so you don’t pay attention? While we were waiting for our flight, the woman on the PA called my name and asked me to come to the service desk. Needless to say, I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I went to the counter and she handed me my driver’s license. It had been in my pocket and apparently fell out. The amazing thing is that not only was it found but someone went to the trouble to find out where my next flight was leaving from and get it there. I didn’t know it was even lost until it was returned. I was more than a little grateful.

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Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens

From Los Angeles we flew up the coast and had a nice view of Lake Tahoe. We also had a nice view of Yosemite Valley from the west and I was able to make out some of the most notable features, including Half Dome, Cathedral Rocks, and El Capitan. I only had my wide angle lens so the pictures I got were not very good, although I can identify landmarks pretty well. A little further on we passed Mounts Hood, Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier. At this point I had retrieved my 100mm lens was able to get some nice pictures such as this one of Mount St. Helens in Washington. You can clearly see the hole in the top from when it blew its lid in 1980, an event that I remember vividly from the news reports of the time (but thankfully didn’t experience anywhere near first hand).

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Dulles International Airport

Dulles International Airport

Dulles International Airport

Dorothy left Juneau yesterday and arrived here a few minutes before 6:00 AM this morning. I got to Dulles a few minutes early and had time to take some pictures of the lighting of the main terminal building. I assume this is for the holidays but I don’t actually know for certain. Whatever the reason, it was really nice. It was rainy this morning, possibly to help Dorothy feel more comfortable being here, as this is what she’s gotten used to in Juneau. Needless to say, it’s great to have her home and we’re looking forward to having here here for a while.

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