Day 222/365 - Winging My Way Home

Flew home from my niece's wedding in Houston today. This shot was taken inside one of the American Airlines terminals at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. My day started with me at my sister's lake house sitting on the dock looking out over the water and ended with me sitting at my computer going through the 600+ photos I took over the course of the weekend.

Being a wedding photographer must be a great gig. I realize there would be a fair amount of stress and craziness involved, but weddings are so super-saturated with love and joy that it seems you'd have a permatan of happiness if that was your regular work environment. Now I think I have a second fallback option after pastry chef if the lawyer thing goes kablooey. It's good to have options, even if they only get used for daydreaming purposes.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 145/365 - Finally Home

I'm finally back home in the DC area after catching a flight from Chicago's O'Hare airport (that's it pictured above) at 6:15 this morning after the last leg of my return from vacation in Venice was cancelled last night due to weather issues. Luckily my body was still operating on Venetian time (i.e., 7 hours ahead of Central US time) so getting up pre-dawn was no big deal this morning.

I don't think I'll be booking a flight that requires me to change planes twice en route again. I only did it this time because American Airlines doesn't fly to Venice so I had to switch off to one of their code share partners for part of the trip. I didn't want to book a more direct flight through another airline and lose out on getting approximately 10,000 frequent flier miles. I think I should now have enough miles for a free flight to Europe, so it should be considerably less than five years before I make my next trip abroad.

Hmmm, where to go next? Decisions, decisions...

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 137/365 - On My Way to Venice!

This was the gate from which the flight that was the first leg of my trip to Venice departed DC. The plane for this flight was a tiny little commuter jet. Honestly, it was like flying in a VW Beetle. And the overhead bins were so small I didn't think I was going to be able to get my backpack to fit. The flight was delayed 30 minutes due to weather issues up north.

Then when we got to NYC, we were put in a holding pattern due to an aerial traffic jam at JFK. And once we finally landed, they had issues with getting the jet bridge to work properly and so we were delayed yet again. All of which meant I had to hustle to catch my flight to London, which was the second leg of my trip to Venice. So instead of lounging around the airport and grabbing a bite to eat, I was running (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof) from one end of JFK to the other.

Thankfully the plane for this flight was much bigger. It was actually bigger than it needed to be, given that it was only about three-fifths full. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as we left the gate they made us go and park and wait for 45 minutes for the backlog of flights in line to take off cleared. I got stuck sitting in amidst a group of 10 people traveling together who didn't speak English. They were constantly in and out of their seats and talking loudly and to top it all off they had a bunch of kids with them.

Thanks heavens I remembered to put a pair of earplugs in my backpack. I stuffed them in my ears, popped a Sominex, and settled down to try and get some sleep.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)