Traveling Animals - Hoping to make it home tonight

Late night by the connecting gate, flight delayed, huddled up and hoping to make it home.

Traveling Animals - Rolling in Tomatos

Tiniest Moose being very bad indeed.

Traveling Animals - Tucked in for Bed

Tiniest Moose, all tucked in for bed.

Traveling Animals - DC Metro

I have loved the retrofuturistic shape of the DC Metro stations ever since I first encountered them at twelve years old, traveling to see the capitol for the first time with my grandparents.

Traveling Animals - DC Hotel

 Looking out the window of a hotel in Washington DC.

Traveling Animals - Seafood Soup

 A seabird enjoys some seafood soup.

Traveling Animals - Emerging from the Travel Bag

Safe in the hotel room, Hati pops out of my travel backpack.

Traveling Animals - Colorful Underground O'Hare

Coruscating rainbow patterns in the underground slidewalk to the detached part of Terminal C in O'Hare Airport.

Traveling Animals - Airborne Sunset

Sunset in the sky, dipping through one layer of clouds down to another.

Traveling Animals - Boston's Zakim Bridge

Crossing the Zakim Bridge in Boston, where the old marble-shoot exits used to be, on a surprisingly low-traffic day.

Traveling Animals - Looking at the Clouds

 Looking out the airplane window at the clouds below.

Traveling Animals - Iowa Departure

 Waiting for boarding to begin in the Eastern Iowa Airport.

Traveling Animals - Arriving at Dagstuhl

Arriving at the Dagstuhl computer science conference center, in as close as Germany can provide to a middle of nowhere.

Traveling Animals - A swirl of origami at MIT

 Looking up at a massive swirl of origami paper cranes in the Stata Center lobby at MIT.

Traveling Animals - Dinner in O'Hare

 Hati has a dinner before a flight connecting in O'Hare.

Traveling Animals - Looking out of the lounge in O'Hare

Looking out of the lounge in O'Hare Airport.

Traveling Animals - Hello Kitty bus!

Sometimes a moment of the sublime absurd. I doubt this tour-bus was allowed to use Hello Kitty, and I also think they didn't care. I just loved their solemn stenciled statement.

Traveling Animals - Jammed together on the subway

Tightly packed in a subway car at rush hour, probably the Boston Red Line, but the lines of many cities blur together in my feelings.

Traveling Animals - Passing through Heathrow

Passing through one of the many intricate passages lacing through the Terminals of Heathrow airport here somewhere inside of Terminal 5. Connecting there is always a long maze down and up and through, and usually with a bus-ride in between two terminals as well.

Traveling Animals - Cold and rainy departure in Luxembourg

A cold rainy departure from Luxembourg, already four or five hours into an early morning and only the first of three flights back to home.

Traveling Animals - Shooting pool at Dagstuhl

 Pool table in a building at the Dagstuhl computer science research center.

Traveling Animals - On the beach in St. John

 Exploring a quiet pebbled beach.

Traveling Animals - Breakfast meeting

Today, I am in airports, returning from my first air travel since March of 2020. This trip, in fact, serves as a bookend of sorts with that previous one, as I am just attended the same standards meeting that I did on that last, so fateful journey. In celebration of the return of travel, and in mourning for the same, I am going to spend the next while posting the Traveling Animals" collection that I have been building since 2014.

Back then, my then two-year-old daughter brought her stuffed elephant to me as I was heading out the door and declared that it would travel with me. I sent back pictures as I went, and ever since an animal has travelled with me on every trip that I have taken away from my family. 

When I send back the pictures, I often feel connected, but also melancholy, connected and distant all at once. These pictures form a curious slice into my professional life, the mixture of joy, fulfillment, and exhaustion that comes with frequent travel. I hope that you get to have at least a little of that experience as you look at this collation over time.

Pemigewasset Wilderness

 Another view into the Pemigewasset Wilderness, looking more Northward this time.

Pemigewasset Wilderness

Crest the ridge line in Franconia Notch, and you look out across the untouched lush green forest of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, remarkably remote and impenetrable for a spot in crowded New England.

Mountain flowers, Franconia Notch

Pink mountain flowers nestled safely by a rock in the harsh world above the tree-line.

Shining Rock, Franconia Notch

Shining Rock is a great bald patch of rock face high on the mountainside that often shines with the slick coating of water running across its surface.

Falling Waters Trail, Franconia Notch

Waterfalls on the aptly named Falling Waters Trail, up the side of Franconia Notch.

Franconia Notch

 From a beautiful trip years back, the wilderness of Franconia North in New Hampshire.

Puzzle with cats on

I have noticed that jigsaw puzzles often have cats on them. Also, our jigsaw puzzles often have our own cats on them too.

Cat behind a couch

 Veronica curled up in a tight little ball behind a couch.