Go West!

06/12/08

So I am traveling to Montana for the first time ever. I am going to a seminar entitled “Western Herbal Medicine in Veterinary Use”. It’s being hosted by Animal Essentials, one of our favorite remedy suppliers in the store. I hope to come home with lots of good new knowledge so that we can work on keeping our pets healthier in a gentler, more natural way.

I don’t travel much so I am that combination of nervous and excited, sort of feeling free and unmoored at the same time.

I have gotten into the habit, for better or for worse, of abdicating responsibility for certain things because B Looey takes care of them. Little detail things…like, do I have a watch? Do I have Kleenex? What time is the flight? What airline? Do I have “weapons” in my pockets? I forget to think about these things, until I have to remember them.

Today I had to remember them. I am doing OK…not great with the details. I left my “Juice” in my checked luggage. Good. I forgot my watch. Not so good. I remembered my glasses. Score! I forgot Kleenex. There are paper towels in the restrooms. I did not check for changes in my flight. There was one. It will take a while for me to adjust to thinking for myself.

Travel notes…

Travel is not as much fun as it used to be.

The space, or lack thereof, on planes is enough to keep me on a diet for the rest of my life. The aisles are not even wide enough to fit their own equipment. I was roused from my Dramamine induced stupor when my shoulder took a massive hit from the beverage cart as the flight attendant attempted to maneuver it through the plane. The abuse did not end there. My shoulder apparently had a bulls-eye printed on it as visitors to the rear of the plane pretty much just took part of my arm with them coming and going.

There is a very talkative 3 or 4 year old sitting behind me who is not using her “inside voice” and a wildly precocious 9 or 10 year old sitting in front of me. They are vying for the title of “most annoying”. Both sets of parents have apparently just given up.


Notes and Observations thus far:
I think that the Missoula runway must be pretty short because the pilot pretty much popped a wheelie while landing the plane. Since I am writing this from the beauty of my Super 8 motel room in Hamilton, MT, I am assuming he knew what he was doing.

You don’t see as many cowboy hats in Boston as you do in Montana or on the way there.

Consume a LOTTA meat out here.