Unique flight

As a frequent flyer it's not often that I have an unique experience on a plane. However yesterday I did. I flew back from the Oregon coast at 8pm when I arrived at this regional airport that has only 8 flights a day I discovered that I was the only person there at 6 when I was dropped off by the kennel club. There was no cafe or even a vending machine to be found. No TSA even , until 7:30, so just read my book in the waiting area. At 7pm a gate agent appeared and called me by name and told me I would be the ONLY passenger on the flight and as soon as the plane arrived and unloaded the passengers it would fly to Portland with me and we would not wait for the scheduled departure time- as everyone wanted to get home for the night. That was just fine with me.
So we took off in my "private jet" just me and a flight attendant and pilot and first officer- I enjoyed the short 35 minute flight and got home to watch the spectacular firework display put on by our neighbors - before falling into bed, so I could be up at 4:30 to get back to the airport for my early morning flight to California.
(This blog post is being written in the Red Carpet Lounge on my iTouch)

A long Weekend

We went to Denmark! We arrived on Friday at about 2pm and collected our rental car and drove about 60km west of Denmark to where we were to stay the night. The weather was right around freezing, gray and VERY windy (which made it feel even colder) but dry.
The Bromølle Kro where we were staying was built at this location in 1198, and although it has undergone modernization in the years since then, some of the original beams can still be seen. We had a wonderful meal here on Friday night with friends Pia, Knud, Anne & Miikka. After a good nights sleep we left Saturday morning to go to the January Awards Party and show of the Danish Beagle Club, held just a few miles away..
The tables were set up around the ring and lunch and dinner were served amidst the judging – it did make for a very long day. The show had an entry of 99 and the judge was Manuel Borges, from Portugal. Full results. Several dogs we had sent to Denmark over the years did quite well with Starbuck Torbay Talbot Hill Grand Cru being 3rd best dog in show. We had made this trip to evaluate some puppies and 2 of them came home with us – Susan & Thomas. They are just 7 months old and will not be shown until they have grown up a bit, I will update our webpage soon with details on them, but they are by Danish & American Champion Starbuck Torbay About Face out of Danish Champion Gold Line Romantic Issue.

We flew home from Copenhagen on Sunday and stayed overnight in Seattle with our friend Carrie and drove home today. The youngsters handled the whole trip marvelously and came out of their crates at the airport tails wagging.

Travel and Technology

As we get ready to head to Singapore and then on to Australia its’s time to charge up all my electronics. So what do I take with me when we travel…my iTouch (which provides me with videos for the flight, games, for when I am bored and Wi-Fi connection so I can get email on the road) all in this small package. And you can leave it in your handbag going through security

Then I have to have all the right chargers and adaptors – I like my iGo charger as I can use one charger, with different tips to charge Nokia cell phone and iTouch.

Then I like this adaptor from APC (which is small and flat - unlike many other brands, and very ingeniously constructed.
To keep my iTouch charged on the plane I also have an empower kit which, plugs into the airline in-seat power (which hopefully will be working) the one disadvantage with this is that it gets VERY hot, so you can only run it for a while. So I do carry supplementl battery power for the iTouch, so I can watch my movies on the nearly 20 hour flight (with layovers in Seattle and Tokyo)
When we arrive in Australia we will buy a local SIM card for our phones, and they are very generous with minutes and we can even call back to the USA, at a cheap rate.
So my carryon does get a bit full with all these electrical accessories – which sometimes causes a search at the airline security checkpoints.
The good thing, I am not bored, nor out of touch for too long!

What an Exciting weekend!

On Saturday Herbie shown by David (bred by Carrie) won Best in Show and became the first red/white male in the history of the breed to win a BIS...then he surprised us all by winning BIS again today - making it Back to Back Best in Shows - definitely a first, no other Red/White beagle has won 2 Best in Shows before in the USA.

Unfortunately neither Carrie nor I were at the shows to witness this historic event - where were we...well we had gone to a Rick Steves day of lectures about travel to Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovinia, Slovakia, Poland, England and then we attended his slide show and talk on his recent visit to Iran which was really interesting.

Off to Springfield

Tomorrow I am off to Springfield, Illinois, to judge shows for 4 days. hopefull I will have some spare time to see something other than just the fairgrounds. The photo above is of Lincoln's house where he lived prior to becoming President - its supposed to be open to the public.

To Estes Park

On Thursday 25th September, we (3 people – Carrie, David and myself) and 5 Dogs (Herbie, Mister, Burt, Sera and Bob) piled into the car for the 1300+ mile journey to Colorado. Our first day of travel got us to Twin Falls, Idaho

where we stopped overnight and tried to get the dogs into the routine necessary for a long trip. The weather was lovely, not too hot. An early start Friday (pretty much the order of the day for the next 10 days!) saw us heading to Salt Lake City, where I attended the Akita National Judges education, while David and Carrie relaxed.
Saturday we drove to Estes Park and passed through some beautiful scenery on the way to the hotel.

We arrived at about 5pm and settled us and the dogs into the hotel, before heading out to dinner. We were amazed at how many tourists were in town also, fortunately this appeared to be a weekend crowd, as it was less populated during the week.
Monday started the week of showing with the Rocky Mountain Beagle Club Sweepstakes in which Bob won the 9-12 class, Mister won the 12-15 class and Sera was 4th in the 12-15 class (her sister Abby) won the class.
This was followed by the regular classes for Rocky Mountain Beagle Club and Bob was 2nd in the 9-12 puppy class Mister won the Bred By class and went on to win 15″ Best Bred By Exhibitor. Sera was 2nd in Bred By (her sister Abby again won the 12-15 class.) Herbie earned an Award of Merit
Our friends from Europe – Annica and Anne & Miikka joined us for Dinner on Monday along with Oleg from Maryland. Anne chose the wine and a VERY good choice she made!
The weather was just lovely, in the 70’s during the day, so great for walking, and we had some spare time and walked down to the lake, saw some Elk up close (pictures to follow soon, from my friends) and lots of deer near the hotel. The altitude unfortunately affected some people (Estes Park is at about 7500 ft) with a couple being hospitalized, our group of friends, was thankfully unaffected.

More to come……

Brugge

Made our trip uneventfully from PDX to BRU, arriving a little early,
despite the FAA having some sort of computer glitch which was

slowing take off and landings at airports all over the east coast
of the USA. We then caught the train to Brugge and then Taxi
to Hotel. Room was ready at the Crown Plaza at 10:30am,
(a nice surprise), and an upgrade (due to David's Platinum status
with Holiday Inn) We showered and then hit the streets and
have walked around a fair bit.

We enjoyed the local farmers market

We also did a city  tour by bus for
45 minutes, to get the lay of the city. LOTS of tourists here,
the hotel gave us a complimentary box of chocolates....
yummy...there are as many chocolate shops here as coffee
shops in the Pacific Northwest.

Saw this whilst walking around, obviously warning about Pick Pockets!

I am sitting in the hotel room typing this, listening to the horse
drawn tourist carriages, clop on by.Back from dinner, an
overpriced but enjoyable meal.
When the US $ is weak, everything in Europe seems expensive!

Brugge

Chilly in Chile

Due to the excess rain, the club decided to delay the start of judging by 2 hours (to 11am)-well of course a late start, means a late finish (9.30pm) We were on a basketball court, with carpet underfoot, the building had a roof and sides to about 10 feet then an 8 foot gap to the roof, to let the breeze in...
Although we had been warned it would be cold and told to dress appropriately we were all still cold. I was happy to have taken disposable handwarmers with me. All the judges said they felt like the TinMan in the Wizard of Oz, due to all the layers of clothes we had on!!

The judging system is FCI, but with no critiques, except for Specialty shows. The other difference was that there were 2 shows on the one day for 1/2 the groups and the other groups had 2 shows the next day, with only Saturday's winners having to come back for BIS. This is not a bad idea, but did present some scheduling challenges.
I had 32 beagles in the specialty and hope to have some pictures of the winners soon to share.

Today I had h0ped to go sightseeing, but the plans keep changing,r along with the gloomy weather. I think Chile would be nice at a different time of the year - winter is not the best time to be here unless you enjoy skiing.

Sunday

Having tried my first blogging experience last night, I decided I did not like my former host and have changed to this location. Its easier to move when you have just started and I like the ability to be able to embed the Picasa photo albums - Thanks Janet!

Its a lazy Sunday here, with not much going on. Just thinking about the preparations for my upcoming trip to Santiago, Chile - I leave on Wednesday. I am judging a Beagle Specialty and all breeds shows there. I hope to be able to keep the blog going while away - I just have to fine tune being able to handle all the electronics I carry (iPod Touch,new mini computer - Asus Eee, and cell phone - which I have decided takes pretty good photos) and still have just all carry on baggage.