Category: airplanes

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A Quick Trip to Philadelphia

Hi, everyone!  Life has been quite busy around our house.  Mr. Guy and The Lady are both back at work and the animals and I have been at home during the day.  I thought things were going to be calm and quiet for us, but we have been having lots of landscaping done at our house.  The dogs have spent the days watching intently and barking a little, the cat has slept through it all, and I have been trying to stay out of the way.  despite all of this busy-ness, we got to take a short weekend trip to Philadelphia last weekend.

The Lady is part of a group called NOAH, National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation.  Every other year the adults of NOAH get together for a weekend of fun.  NOAH is for people with albinism.  One of the things that that means is most of them have white fur.  Even though I have blue fur and Mr. Guy has no gray fur, they let us go too.  People with albinism also have difficulty seeing so Mr. Guy and I were able to help them find things in this unfamiliar city.

We got to the airport early, but not as early as when we were flying to Salisbury all those times, on Friday morning, September 11.  We sat down to eat a quick breakfast in the airport.


As we were finishing our meal, there was an announcement about a service of remembrance in the airport chapel.  Mr. Guy and The Lady explained to me that fourteen years ago at exactly that time, a terrible thing happened in our country and  lots of people lost their lives.  As I was listening to what had happened, I got very sad.  Mr. Guy held me tightly and we all said a prayer for all the lives lost and changed forever on September 11, 2001.

So that I wouldn’t be quite so sad, Mr. Guy took me to the candy store and bought me a treat to have on the airplane.  I got grapefruit, watermelon, and peach gummy chews.  Yum!


I must have fallen asleep as soon as we got on the airplane, because I don’t remember the flight at all.  I didn’t even eat any of my candy!  When we got to Philadelphia, we met some of The Lady’s NOAH friends in the airport and then we all rode to the hotel together.  While we were in the car, I realized that it has been quite a long time since I have added any new photos to my 100 People Project.  I hoped that while I was in Philadelphia that maybe I would meet a few people who would be willing to support my project.

As usually, Mr. Guy was carrying me when we walked into the hotel.  Several people called out, “Look!  It’s Blueper B!”  I wasn’t sure who any of these people were or how they knew me.  Mr. Guy said that he bet that they read my blog and that’s how they knew who I was.  I felt kind of like a monster star.  I got to talk to people, shake hands with them, and have my picture taken with them!  The first one is with Joni.  She and The Lady are good friends.  They have lots of things in common like this thing they do where they tie string together with two sticks.  Somehow they make the string turn into objects like hats and socks. They call it knitting.  I think it’s some kind of magic trick.  Maybe they could knit me a magic T-shirt.


The NOAH people said that people are fascinated with their white hair and that sometimes people ask if they can touch it…and sometimes they don’t even ask; they just do it.  I don’t think that that is very polite.  Another friend of Mr. Guy and The lady asked if she could give my fur a new style.  Ms. Cindy worked hard to give me a Mohawk.



What do you think of my new fur-do???


I think Mr. Guy might be a little jealous that he can’t have a cool Mohawk like mine.  

Since I let Ms. Cindy practice her hairstyling skills on my fur, she agreed to have her picture taken with me.


Ms Cindy and I had some interesting conversations.  She lives in Canada and invited us to come visit her some time.  That would be fun; I have never been to another country before.  

On Saturday, we went on a walking tour to see some of the historic buildings in Philadelphia.  Well, I went on a carrying tour; everyone else walked.  We had to take a short ride on a train to get to the starting point of the tour.

We saw lots of old buildings that are important to the history of our country.  Since I don’t go to school, I don’t know very much about history, American or an other kind.  We had an entertaining tour guide whose name was Mr. Jim.  He knew lots of things about all of the historical places in Philadelphia.  Though there is much more that I need to learn, he gave me a good start on learning a few things about my country.

We saw Carpenters’ Hall where the First Continental Congress met.


Independence Hall where the U. S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated.

The U. S. Mint.


We saw the Liberty Bell, but only through a window.  The lines to get into all of these buildings were long.  Mr. Guy and The Lady said that we will go back sometime when we can spend longer looking around.

We saw this interesting sculpture.  The Lady was taking pictures of it when Mr. Guy said that she should take a picture of the reflection so that all of us would be in the picture.  I don’t have many pictures with The Lady because she is always behind the camera.  


I am grateful that Mr. Jim was willing to show us his city.  And, that he was willing to be photographed with me!

Even though it was a quick weekend trip, I had lots of fun in Philadelphia.  Mr. Guy and The Lady have some great friends in NOAH.  One of them in particular made me laugh all the time.  Her name is Becca.  She is very silly and lots of fun!  Becca and I ate donuts together and we had our very first Slurpees together.   I think that will make us friends for life! And her blue eyes make my blue fur really stand out! We also had a Philly Cheesesteak together in the airport.  She said that she might come visit us in Texas sometime.  I hope so! 

Thank you everyone for letting me share in the NOAH weekend even though I have blue and orange fur instead of white fur!  You all are lots of fun!!  The Lady just told me that I will get to see you all again next summer in Pittsburgh.  Yay!


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Monster Travels!

 

This is Ms. Megan.  She took care of us while we were at the cabin in Asheville.  I especially like her because she gave The Lady and Mr. Guy laundry soap to wash my shirts (and some of theirs too) so that I would be a clean monster as we travelled home.  I really liked staying at the cabins; there were all kinds of things for little blue and orange furry monsters to do.  Mr. Guy and The Lady seemed very happy there too.

Getting home to Dallas was another story…

We had to check out of our cabin at noon and our airplane did not leave until evening.  We decided to play a few games before we left. 


 The Lady has always liked to play skee ball.  She thought that I might like it too so she showed me how to play.  I liked the orange balls and the game was fun too.  After I practiced a few times, I asked Mr. Guy to play a game with me.


He did pretty well.  Then it was my turn.

I had some beginner’s luck.


I learned about being a good sport.  Even though my number was higher than Mr. Guy’s, he still played well and we both had fun.  And fun is what it is all about!  Next time, Mr. Guy’s number might be bigger than mine.  And that will be OK.  It is just a game.

We both played hard so we needed a little rest before our big travel day.


I sure like cuddling with Mr. Guy.  I’m glad that he did not get mad because my skee ball numbers were bigger than his.  Winning a game is not nearly as important as having someone to nap with in a hammock!  

After our rest, The Lady took one more picture of us before we left the cabins for good.


I hope we get to come back here again!

All of the game playing and picture taking made me hungry.  The Lady said that there was a place in North Carolina that she liked to go when she was in school here.  She told Mr. Guy that it was not the healthiest food, but it would bring back some silly memories for her so he said, “Let’s go.”  So, we went to Hardees for lunch.  The Lady said that she really liked their sausage biscuits, but it was lunchtime when we went so she could not get one.  she said that they also had pretty good hamburgers.

When we walked in the door, I saw this sign.


This was puzzling to a furry monster.  North Carolina is not the southwest. Texas is the southwest.  I like tacos, but I wasn’t so sure about these tacos.  Mr. Guy said you have to be careful about Mexican food when you are not really in the southwest.  We ordered hamburgers.  I decided that I could wait until I get back to Texas to eat tacos.


Even though it was early, after lunch we decided to head to the airport.  That was OK.  I like to sit in airports and watch the people, especially when they stop and talk to me.  We got to the airport and then the real adventure began…

Our first flight from Asheville to Charlotte was delayed by three hours.  That meant we would miss our next flight from Charlotte to Dallas.  Uh oh!  After a lot of pushing buttons on the computer, the airlines lady said that they would just call a driver to take us by van to Charlotte so that we would be there in time to leave for Dallas.  We sat and waited to see if anyone else needed to ride in the van with us.


Then the airplane lady said that they were wrong.  The plane to Charlotte was leaving only one hour late so now we could fly on it rather than ride in the van so she gave us a new ticket.  I felt bad for the van man who came and was waiting there to help people and then we didn’t need him.  Mr. Guy and I told him thank you for his willingness to help us.

After we got our new tickets, we went through the weird place where they make Mr. Guy put me in a bucket and go through the scary tunnel all by myself.  I don’t like that!  They take pictures of me, but they are not like the one’s that The Lady takes.  These pictures make me look black and white instead of blue and orange.  The Lady said that they are looking at my insides.  I don’t know why they are doing that!  I am always so happy when Mr. Guy picks me up at the other end of the tunnel!  Ms. Linda told me that there is light at the end of the tunnel.  So far, she is right!  But the airplane lady was wrong…now our plane was leaving another hour late!  I don’t know how to tell time, but that is not my job.  I think people who make airplane schedules should know how clocks and hours and schedules work!

They told us that we would still get to Charlotte in time to get to the plane home to Dallas.  Our plane left even later because it ran into some birds and they got tangled in the engines.  I did not want to hear anymore about that.  It sounded very yucky to me!  We finally got to Charlotte.  All of the people on the plane with us had to hurry to get to other planes.  We got to ride on one of the funny airport cars.  I didn’t know that they would take us for a ride.  Usually they just honk and nearly run us over!  Even with riding through the airport, we didn’t make it in time to catch our plane.  

Now we had to spend a night in a hotel.  I thought that would be fun, but The Lady said that it would not be because we did not have any PJ’s or clean clothes for the next day.  Uh oh!  Fortunately I had been a neat monster and hadn’t spilled anything on my shirt.  

We finally got to a hotel and went to sleep.  It was very late and I was very tired!  

Ms. Linda read on Facebook that we were going to be in Charlotte all day so she came and got us and we all went to lunch together.  That was fun and I was a happy monster that I got to see her again!  After lunch, she took us back to the airport.  We had a lot of time to sit and watch the people.


Mr. Guy helped me play games on his phone.


We played together so that we didn’t have to worry about each other’s numbers.


Then we watched more people.


And finally it was time to get on the plane and fly home.  I slept in Mr. Guy’s lap the whole way home. 

 I liked Asheville a lot, but I am a little tired of airports.  I have had a great adventure and met lots of really nice people on this trip!  But, I have to say, it is nice to be home in my very own monster bed!