Monday, March 9, 2009

Ladies & Gentlemen of the 1860s Conference day 1

What a wonderful weekend. I'm going to divide my blog of this trip into parts as there was so much going on. We decided on this trip to fly into Phillidelphia and take the train to Harrisburg.
All the pictures from day one can be found at the link at the end of this entry.

The flight from Austin to Houston was uneventful. At Houston I met Nancy and we headed out in search of See's Candy and breakfast. Made it back just in time to catch our flight; that set the tone for the day. The flight was full and ran a bit late. Our ground transportation was timed to the minute so the late arrival caused a bit of a rush. We ran to the SEPTA train, the regional that runs from the airport to the main train station in Philly. Just caught that one. Arrived at the AmTrack station just in time to catch our train to Harrisburg; now we could relax. The train ride was so nice; stopping at some of the little towns, the different landscape and architecture. I managed to get just a couple of pictures from the train.

The shuttle arrived to take us to the hotel in Camp Hill, just across the river. There was a little snow left on the ground, but not much and it was just comfortable with a sweater on. Kind of a disappointment as we were hoping to experience winter coming from almost 90 degrees in Texas. We checked in and managed to get a downstairs room, but not one of the upgraded rooms with the sleep number bed and cushy duvets. We settled in and decided to get some food.

We ate at the hotel cafe and ran into Carolann and Don Schmitt, hosts of the conference. They invited us to their table. It was a great time and Carolann and Don told us all about their cruise from London to Boston. It sounded like they had so much fun.

We then returned to our room to get ready for the reception. In recent years this reception has been a chance for participants to wear their wrappers and lounge wear, period and modern. Civil War themed movies have been shown in the past, but this year was a birthday party as it was the conference's 15th year. After cake and fashion show, we participated in period parlor games. One game consisted of a feather that had to be kept aloft by blowing on it. If the feather fell and touched someone that person had to give a forfeit. In our game our forfeits were to complete a task asigned by the rest of the group. One person had to beg like a dog, I had to act like a chicken, another had to go to each corner and laugh, cry, and something else. It was quite funny. We also played a game of question and answers; there was no gentleman in our group so it was not as fun, but we still had a good time.

Then off to bed to make an early start on Friday.

Pictures

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