The Travel Is A’foot

First of all, tomorrow’s Powerball is up to $485M as of this posting. That’s crazy. That would be $223M after all taxes if we win with a single ticket. Wow. Increase all numbers in my previous post accordingly. More to tithe, charity, trust funds, family/friends, investments. Crazy.

In other news, tomorrow night the kids and I head north to Northern Virginia where we will spend the night with my sister. Then on Thursday we’ll be flying out of Dulles to the sunny world of Los Angeles. The time has finally come: Gallifrey One, a Doctor Who convention. Yep. You read that right. The kids are very excited, and so am I. I’m sad that no actual Doctor will be there (last year they had at least a couple), but this year we’ll have Alex Kingston (River Song) and John Barrowman (Captain Jack). Those two alone are worth the price of admission to the convention.

Last year CB and I got snowed out by a freak snowstorm here in Charlotte. This year, it appears we will not be deflected by bad weather. We were almost deflected by extremely high airfares – last year I secured roundtrip airfare for $272 per ticket. This year I never saw anything below $350. Finally, Denis found good airfare out of DC, so we opted to drive to my sister’s (since gas prices are so low) and fly from there on Thursday.

It’ll be a trip of firsts for the kids. First plane ride, first time in California, first nerd convention, and first time in a convertible (I snagged a Fiat hardtop convertible for a lower price than the boring Toyota Corolla the place was initially offering me).

After the convention is over we’ll still have a day in California before we fly out on Monday morning, so I’m also planning on taking them to the Santa Monica Pier, the Hollywood sign, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, a bit of the Walk of Fame, and the La Bear tar pits. Hopefully we’ll have time to also hit Venice Beach for some people watching. I’m sad that the Pan-Pacific Auditorium is no longer in existence – I’d have loved to do a drive-by of that place (thanks to my love of “Xanadu” starring Olivia Newton-John).

*sigh* I love that movie.

Anyway, it should be a good time, although we’ll be leaving Denis at home to be with the dogs.

Speaking of dogs, Chilly the Pirate Dog is recovering nicely – his stitches are out and his hair is growing back. We bought him a patch to cover his eye, but I don’t think we’ll be needing it once his hair grows back fully. He’s just happy not to have the Cone of Shame anymore.