Traveling home from the National Association of Science Writers meeting today felt strange.  The airports were half-empty from all the cancelled flights into and out of New England.  I’m fortunate that I didn’t have to go anywhere near Hurricane Sandy to get to Minneapolis, but still.  Eugh.

As I’m sitting here fighting off sleep so I can get back onto Central time, I thought I’d share with you some pictures from the trip.

The first thing you see when you get out of the terminal at Raleigh-Durham Airport is a full-wall mosaic of various cereal crops.  The Triangle Park region, where the meeting was held, is home to a cluster of important ag-biotech companies.

Sir Walter Scott in a labcoat.  He’s standing outside the convention center where we held our meeting.

Meeting attendees at our “lunch with a scientist” field trip on Sunday.

Downtown Raleigh.

There was a mural on the side of one of the parking structures.

Downtown also had these cool cattle statues scattered around.

Every once in a while you’d bump into a reminder that you’re in the South, such as this statue under the live oak trees.