M@ggie's Photo Blog…

Georgian Picnic weekend, the non-picnic parts

• By M@ggie
• November 20, 2012
• No Comments

So, as you saw, I was lucky enough to get to go to Texas for the DFWCG Georgian picnic. My dad was nice enough to use his frequent flyer miles on my ticket and was nice enough to let me stay with her, so the weekend basically just cost me the cost of airport parking. Which was very cool.

The rust colored trees in DC were really pretty from the air:

I flew through Detroit, which I’ve never been to (or through) before:

Before we hit Detroit, we flew over the Great Lakes:

And an island:

Of course our flight was late getting into Baltimore, so we were late getting into Detroit. I barely made my connection. We came in gate A10-something and I was flying out of A-75 at the furthest opposite point. I had to take a train 2 stops. I think I was the last one on my flight. I had to gate check my bag. So I pulled out the plastic bag I had my dress and stays in, because I didn’t want to check it!

At least I knew my bag did make it to Dallas. I watched them unload it:

We got into Dallas 40 minutes early – but then we sat for a while because we didn’t have a gate, or then a jet bridge operator.

Lesa picked me up and we headed to meet to do some fabric shopping. Things were tempered a little by getting some bad news about a friend, but it was still really nice to look at fabric with other costumers. I was good though and only bought this – I found these on the remnant table. Silk taffeta for $2 a yard. One piece is 2 yds and the other is 3! I couldn’t resist for that price! $10 for 5 yds of silk taffeta!

After fabric shopping, Lesa and I bought some food for the picnic and then picked up takeout from Pei Wei and brought it back to her house. We all watched Snow White and the Huntsman over dinner, which was cool, because I hadn’t gotten to see it yet.

After the picnic the next day, 7 of us headed to ‘s house to change out of our costumes and into muggle clothes so we could get dinner together. It was really funny to see everyone pounce on to see her underwear. By which I mean her amazing hand-sewn stays. :-) After changing, we headed to Uncle Julio’s a Tex-Mex place. It had a long wait (it was a Saturday night, so no big surprise) but we actually were able to get a table at the bar and enough chairs for everyone to sit. We had chips and salsa and we got to talk, so the wait didn’t matter much! We were all ready to eat when we got seated though! The food was really good and so was the company and it was sad to say goodbye.

I managed to leave my shoes at Ginger’s house (they’d been muddy, so I’d forgotten them by the front door when we went out the garage) so Lesa and I had to backtrack some, but that just meant more time to chat. And she drove me through Dallas on the way back so I got to see the lit-up skyline, which was very pretty.

Also, partially thanks to , I’ve become reintroduced to one of my fav reality shoes, “The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team,” so I was kind of excited to be in Dallas. I know it sounds cheesy and I actually have little interest in football or cheerleading, but the show is fairly compelling, since the DCC is the most elite cheerleading squad in the world and seeing how they pick and train their dancers is neat. Plus it’s not edited to have a villain or manufactured drama. Anyway, it’s my guilty pleasure. So it was kind of cool to be there and to see the new ginormous stadium in the distance.

I was exhausted when we got back and had to pack for the next day. I just barely got everything in my suitcase! Lesa’s husband Terry (who is another DragonCon costumer) drove me to the airport the next morning and we had a nice talk about politics and space and stuff. And I think we ended up agreeing with each other on nearly everything, which was kind of funny.

My flights home were surprisingly smooth. I ended up being early to the airport, no line at security, I found a Starbucks and a comfy lounge to hang out in to eat my breakfast. We got in early to Detroit so I didn’t have to race to my connection, which at any rate was leaving from the next gate over. So, easy!

Here’s Detroit again:

Sunset:

And the sunset after landing. Not a great shot:

I had such a fun trip – thanks again to everyone who made it awesome!!