and survived the chaos that is big city traffic. We stay in the really nice hotel that is attached to the convention center simply to avoid having to deal with the traffic.
Rooms are highly sought after. They open up reservations on a particular day in February for the following January and every one of the 1001 rooms are snapped up in less than 15 minutes so you really have to be on the ball. It always surprises me how many people we know when we go and I love that DH gets to spend time with his brother. You might be thinking that I go for DH, but I enjoy it as much as he does. It's always good to catch up with these 2 on the left. This is the organization that we chose when we went to Africa. Buzz and Miles are 2 of the genuinely, nicest people you'll ever meet. Buzz, center, is barely recognizable because in his natural state he is barefoot and stalking elephant. :)
They recently got into ranching so they were eager to discuss that with DH.
I'm not a shopper, but you can spend a lot of money here very fast.
(Photos snagged from Google images because I was too captivated by everything to remember to take pictures)
The only thing we bought this time was some hearing protection. DH shoots so much and he's always worn hearing protection, but his hearing has diminished some and we want to protect what he has left. They are not cheap and he didn't want to get them. He said he wanted to get ME something for my birthday and anniversary and I told him that these WERE for me. LOL.
We spent from 9-5:30 walking through the booths and visiting with people and we still did not see it all. We had to get back home on Friday, but we spent the morning seeing the rest of the convention and revisiting a few of the booths before heading out. When we walked outside, it had started snowing. That doesn't happen a lot in Dallas, but Dallas traffic is scary enough without adding snow into the mix. It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive 65 miles
Most people were driving sensibly, but we passed at least 10 accidents. Thankfully, by the time we arrived back at my BIL's house, the roads were clear. We stopped in to pick up this:
Our taxidermy from Africa has arrived! We cannot wait to dig into it, but we also arrived home at 9:30 on Friday night to 3" of snow. The first thing I reached for were my flannel jammies:
and this morning it was a whopping -1 below 0:
Chopping ice and feeding come before anything else so the crate will have to wait. We might get to 32 degrees today, but at least the sun's out and it promises to be a beautiful day:
Just ask Skeet:
I don't know if his cause for celebration has to do with us being home or the snow,
but he is jubilant:
And everyone knows that the best treasures are always buried beneath the snow:
I pulled out some stew meat from the deep freeze and it's simmering away, making the house smell awfully good. Hopefully we'll be able to unpack our crate this evening and begin planning our Africa room. There will be moving of various mounts because we didn't want to mix continents and Africa deserves a room all to herself. LOL
