Travels to the National

We started early on Wednesday morning on the flight to Dulles (upgraded to 1st class) so it was a comfortable flight and then a layover in Dulles for a couple of hours, hanging out at the Red Carpet Lounge. Whilst there Carrie called us to say her flight through Detroit was going to be delayed, due to weather. As we were driving her from airport to the hotel, we had to wait in Raleigh for her flight - just as well she did not have a dog with her. She arrived safely and we went to Olive Garden for a light meal (at 9pm) before heading to bed.
We were all up early the next morning, judging started at 8am. David and I were both busy doing ringside mentoring with fellow judges, who were getting ready to apply for Beagles. We spent the morning doing that and then watched the specials in the afternoon by ourselves. Our friend Oleg had a good day as his puppies were 1st and 2nd in the 6-9 puppy class. Overall I was disappointed in the quality this year, I did not think it was as strong as last year - I saw a lot of gay tails and bad front movement. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant that night with Carrie, Oleg and Alyce and there was lots of talking and catching up.
On Friday it was 13" judging, and with a smaller entry, there was time to talk to lots of friends from all around the country.

We were a successful bidder on one the baskets up to auction - we won the Brazilian Basket - it had lots of really interesting foods and other items in it. Pictured above is a hanging ornament that was included and below is some of the food

These are packed in cans and if you look closely you can see the damage that was done to the can on the left, when it was packed in our luggage, for the trip home. Believe me this must have taken some severe abuse and it was all pretty well padded. Fortunately everything made it home in one piece. I think the sweet potato paste is eaten with crackers - but not sure about the Doce De Leite - I guess I will have to Google this - or contact me if you have suggestions.


Above is some coffee (there were several more packets!), a beautiful soapstone bowl (one of 2, in the basket) some Guava paste (which I was told goes very well with Goats cheese and crackers) some dried bananas. It was a wonderful basket and thanks so much to Torquay Beagles of Brasil for bringing this to the National.
We flew home on Saturday, long day of travel, but easy - especially the part that included a 15 minute neck/shoulder massage in the Denver airport during our layover there!