A Visitor From Montana

SOOOOO delighted to have a spontaneous and short visit from my "sista' from anotha' motha'", Kyla, come visit this evening!!  Out of all the people who come from Montana, she's one of the favorites!!

A Layover in Edmonton!

I had a 25 hour layover in Edmonton yesterday, and I was able to see some of my dear family that live there! I am so thankful for their willingness to fit me into their schedules. Always great to touch base with loved ones, especially when you're getting paid to do so!!

Bit of a rough focused picture, but the smiles are great!!

Then Kenton dropped me off at the airport, and I flew all night to Houston.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Annapolis, MD

I asked Dianne where she wanted to go, and she chose Annapolis, a place I don't think I'd been to, either. It was a beautiful day to visit, and what a historically rich town! I had no idea I was so close to the place where this country had it's first government council.

We had lunch on the water in a diner/type restaurant.  Nice view!

Main Street!

This church was attended by 4 (if I remember correctly) men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Main street from the opposite end.

The first building to house the government events in the USA.

There were SOOOOOO many places to choose from to eat, but we finally settled on a very nice Italian restaurant, with an authentic Italian waiter.  And, yes, we had a taste of Tiramisu for dessert, along with some delightful coffee and cappuchino.

Such a great visit, although it was short!  My heart was full.

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

Before I went to Dubai, my friend, Dianne, came to visit me from Canada. I forgot my camera during the day we went to the Air and Space Museum, so she just sent me some pictures from her camera. It is a REALLY neat place to visit. I can't BELIEVE how many aircraft are parked in that hanger!! And within INCHES of each other!! Wow.  Oh, and this is the one you walk in the front door to see.  Intimidating???

Ahhh, the Concorde.  Having been NOT looking forward to 12+ hours of flying the next day, I sure wished this aircraft was still in the sky so the trip would go faster.

This picture isn't even clear, and you can see how HUGE this place is.

Then you walk to the middle and see. . .THIS.

Yep, that's us, with the ACTUAL Discovery space shuttle that went into space and came back (notice the man in front of it for perspective).  You can even see the "ash" on the heat shield parts when you get right under it's nose.  Incredible.

Satellite models hanging from the ceiling of the space room

We got there around 4:30 p.m. and were able to park for free (always free admission), and we were only there an hour before it closed.  Not enough time to look at everything, but a good overview.  I'll be going here again, maybe with my next visitor to D.C.??

Bozeman, Montana

For the first time in my history of being a flight attendant, I finally got a LAYOVER in a Montana place! I'd been working and landed and taken off there before, but never for longer than an hour or so. Destination: Bozeman! When we landed, the mountains were covered with fog, but they came out later during the day.

My pilots, flying partners and I had dinner at this place. . .it was really good!

I was very happy to support the local bison (buffalo) ranchers, as were some of my flying partners.  I had bison potstickers

Others had bison, beef, and pork meatloaf

And another had a bison blue cheese burger

We had a bit of a wait for the hotel van to come out so we walked down main street and saw the beautiful sunset.  Big Sky Country, indeed!

When we got back to the hotel, the sun was just setting and the mountains were a mere outline.