Off to America, to attend the River Rat TOGA (Treadleon Gathering and Academy) in Lake City, Minnesota... My bag is laden with samples and shuttles.
Norwich to Schipol, by little plane. Norwich airport is a very unphotogenic place, so I didn't.. Photo, that is.. And at Schipol, I was faced with the interesting task of explaining to a Dutch customs official that I was going to the USA to talk about, and play with, old sewing machines.. While he patently thought I was cracked, I did get the requisite blue sticker on my passport, and they let me on the big plane to Detroit.
Which was fantastically boring, for the most part (the plane, that is). Almost everyone sat with the window shades down, reading their magazines and watching little films.. Like vampires..
At 20 minute intervals, we were fed, watered, and coffeed, until I was utterly stuffed.. the lunch was surprisingly good, though, and I did get to do a deal of work on various webpages..
And Detroit was a great airport.. Coffee, free power-sockets, wifi, and chess
You could drop Beccles into the airport anywhere and not discommode the planes.. They sure do things big over here.. I walked miles around the barriers, got fingerprinted, photographed, inspected, selected, and definitely not rejected.. The airport is so big you have to take a tram to your section for the gates, and the alphabetical list of flights ran over 5 big screens. And I pulled visitor rank a little, got a window seat, and we flew, in glorious sunshine to Milwaukee
Take-off
Over the edge of Lake Michigan
And more Edge of Michigan
Milwaukee airport is full of art
I think the truck was art..
A good night, supper on the road to Madison, WI;
(I didn't eat the pie...)
and my hosts, Bill and Marcia Holman, were (and are) charming.. We sat over breakfast this morning in the sun-deck-room of their lovely house, watching birds.. I saw a hummingbird, blue jay, woodpeckers, much more.. I think this is a tree creeper
and on the road today I saw eagles, sand hill cranes, amazing barns, scenery in plenty, and much more
More tomorrow, with pictures
