BeerHer2010 & ReNYC2010

My weekend, in pictures:

Saturday – BeerHer2010

While walking to my hotel I encountered this wedding procession.

Poppy & Dawg sitting outside The Ginger Man

Poppy, Rachel, B.E. Earl and Robin at the Ginger Man

Ginger Man chalkboard art

More BeerHer2010 pictures from The Ginger Man, as well as from ayza wine and chocolate bar, are available as a photo album.

Sunday – ReNYC2010

My nod to TequilaCon

The Grand Central Station clock

Strolling through Central Park in a light rain

One of my favorite flower pics ever. Click through twice for full size.

One of many butterfly shots I took (see album for more)

Watching the watcher

Another notch in my Hard Rock belt

Feed the Dawg!

More ReNYC2010 pictures from Grand Central Station, Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hard Rock Cafe at Yankee Stadium are available as a photo album.

I had so much fun and can’t wait for my next trips — back to NYC as well as anywhere else!

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More BeerHer & TequilaCon Pictures

I’ve gone ahead and uploaded the rest of my BeerHer and TequilaCon pictures — including the ones I’ve already posted here and here — to Flickr. Or, you can view all images tagged with “BeerHer” as well as the TequilaCon ’09 photo pool so that you can see other attendees pictures along with mine.

Santa Fe Trip: Day 2 – BeerHer

Saturday summary, photo-bullet style.

	On our way from Lubbock to Santa Fe, we passed a number of establishments named after various people we know (well, not really, but you know what I mean). Our favorite was this sign in honor of Dave2.
	We took highway 285 to get to Santa Fe, which turned out to be a big mistake. A portion of the road was down to a single lane shared by the traffic going each way. So we spent quite a while just sitting and waiting for our turn. My guess is at least 20 minutes, but I’m not really sure.
	When we finally did get to go, we soon discovered that for a large portion of the supposed single lane road, there was really no lane at all. It seemed very odd to be driving on a highway and have it become basically a dirt road for a good stretch.
	While we were stopped waiting for our turn, we decided to take the top down on the convertible. Wow was the weather perfect for this. It was so nice — definitely one of the best convertible rides I’ve ever had, right up there with driving around Kawaii in a convertible a number of years ago.
	We finally arrived at our destination, the Santa Fe Sage Inn. One of the nice features is a complimentary shuttle to and from anywhere in downtown Santa Fe (probably a 4 square mile area, I would guess). We took advantage of this to head to where we had last heard Karl was, but he was no longer there.
	Eventually, we met up with Karl, Geeky Tai-Tai, bellaventa and Libragirl at the Hilton. We got some food and drinks and hung out at the Hilton pool for a while. Eventually, it was time to go get ready for BeerHer.  The order in the picture, from left to right, is: Libragirl, Geeky Tai-Tai, me (in back), Karl, Wayne and bellaventa.
	We all met up again at the Santa Fe Brewing Company for BeerHer, along with NYC Watchdog and Poppycede, as well as…
	… Sarah!  It was great to get to meet and hang out with all these new people, though I felt like I already knew several of them. It’s a strange sensation meeting for the first time, someone you already know. The Santa Fe Brewing Compony turned out to be a perfect venue for the inaugural BeerHer, and we found an S-shaped table that was just right for the number of people we had.
	Later on, Marty and his wife Reba joined us for the tail end of BeerHer. It was wonderful to meet them as well as Marty is another one of those people whom I felt like I already knew.

After BeerHer ended, Wayne and I decided to head for a casino for a little while. We wound up at the Camel Rock Casino, about 15 minutes north of Santa Fe. We arrived too late for Craps, and there were just a few BlackJack tables open. We played BlackJack for a while and then hit the slots. We both made reasonable donations to the casino so that we can have good luck tomorrow.

Next up, probably some more casino time, some photo tourism and the main event, TequilaCon 2009!

(I’m staying up later each night of this trip. At this rate, I may not sleep at all tomorrow night.)

Santa Fe Trip: Day 1 – Driving to Lubbock

I had thought we were going to try to get out of town early in the afternoon, but apparently the fact that I didn’t really commit to it led to Wayne scheduling some other activities. Thus, our departure time was delayed until 5:30 PM (at the earliest). In truth, with a stop at Target to get Wayne some sandals, we really didn’t get going until well after 6 PM.

Thankfully, Wayne likes to drive, so he drove the entire time today. I’m not sure if I’ll be driving tomorrow or if he will continue. Despite the yawn, he drove at least five more ours.

We stopped in Lampasas for a quick dinner at Storm’s Drive-In, Inc. I like little places that I’ve never heard of, but this was just meh. We both had the (chicken-fried) steak sandwiches and we shared some fries. Very similar to Sonic, though the fries were quite different. Anyway, much driving later, we had the following Twitter exchange:

whall: What the heck are these synchronized red blinking lights all along the horizon in Sweetwater, TX? Like 270deg horizon
renagerie: @whall windmills, obviously. Couldn’t you just have asked me since we’re in the same car?

OK, I’ll admit that it too some time for me to figure it out, and I really wasn’t certain until we got close enough to see some blades passing near the lights (it was too dark to see much). Also, I’ve driven this route before, so I was at least aware of there being wind farms in the area.
When we finally got to Lubbock (our halfway point), we had a bit of trouble getting a room. The place I had originally chosen, but not reserved, ended up only have a smoking room available, and we didn’t want that. I called around to several other places nearby, but most of them had no rooms available. We eventually ended up at the Motel 6, where we had to pay $3 for WiFi (an oddly low, yet non-free price) and the beds are a bit too short (as shown in this image).

I should’ve gone to sleep at least an hour ago — I keep drifting off trying to finish this post. I tried to fix all of the resulting typos, but I may have missed some. I’d better get to sleep in case Wayne wants me to drive tomorrow (he’s been asleep for a while now).

Can’t wait for TequilaCon, but first, BeerHer tomorrow night!