As always, I had a blast at ALA. It also always coincides with my anniversary, so the whole family comes. This was The Max’s third ALA and the librarians, as always, love him. We arrived last Thursday a bit later than planned (had to sit on the runway in Chicago for almost 2 hours because of weather between Chicago and Washington D.C.) and just wandered a bit. We saw the White House and ate at Siroc Restaurant. They were very nice and the food was quite good. Call it “interesting Italian-ish” fare. And when I asked for extra cherries for The Max? They gave him a little bowl of them.

Flying Max

On Friday, we went to the National Air and Space Museum. The Max saw rockets and spaceships and airplanes. It was definitely a hit. It was kind of amazing to see one of Amelia Earhart’s planes as well as The Spirit of St. Louis in the same building with a lunar module. Very cool. Oh, and who can forget the Wright brother’s airplane? The real one? That’s a piece of history. Actually, all of it was. We enjoyed it as much as Max did. We also walked around the National Mall (you know, the big patch of land around the museums and the Washington Monument and all that) and wandered around the Smithsonian Folklife Festival that happened to be going on. The Max especially liked the music.

We met up with my editor & other Wizards of the Coast staff for dinner at Chef Geoff’s. It was good and the start of my gaining at least 3 pounds while we were in D.C. The Max was happy; he had popcorn as part of his dinner.

Nina Hess & The Max w/ tattoos!

On Saturday, I got all ready (i.e. put on makeup and all that jazz) and we headed over to the convention center for ALA. I had a signing at 1 and we wandered the floor a bit. I snapped pictures of Avi, Jerry Pinkney, Laurie Halse Anderson, and actually finally met Ellen Hopkins in person (nice dress, Ellen!). Also saw Ralph Nader, which was like a bit of random “Whoa, is that who I think it is?”-ness. I caught a quick glimpse of John Green as he was whisking by, but didn’t get a chance to say hello. Oh, and I met Sarah Wingfield, a sales rep from Random House who has been awesome to me and my books.

The signing was fun. I really love meeting people who love books and that’s the truly great thing about ALA. Everyone there is a book person. Without exception. Max loves it too. He thinks all of the booths are just for him, I think. He even passed out bookmarks to people (which was too adorable — him holding out a bookmark

And The Max is....out.

to librarians and going “Mommy’s book”). Then he literally passed out. He was also really excited to get a Max and Ruby book signed by Rosemary Wells.

Saturday’s staff dinner was at West End Bistro, another great meal. We dressed Max in his little vest and bow tie. He was a hit all the way around

Sunday we started out walking around since my signing wasn’t until 3 PM. We went to the Natural History museum and The Max saw dinosaurs, which he’d been talking about since we started mentioning museums. He really loved the dinosaurs and went running from exhibit to exhibit. He also loved the sculpture garden outside of the National Archive, where you can stick your feet in the water. We all did, actually. It was so incredibly HOT that it was a welcome respite.

I have no caption for this...

ALA Sunday was just as fun. Did run into fellow Chicago-area author James Kennedy and The Max got to meet one of the lions from Between the Lions.

Dinner that night was at Marakesh, a Moroccan-y place with belly dancers and food you eat with your hands. I was so proud of The Max; he tried a bunch of different foods and he loved the show. Just ask him — he’ll belly dance for you now.

Monday was our anniversary and we spent the day walking the city and seeing monuments (Lincoln Monument, the Washington Monument, etc.) and going to the American History museum, which was really cool. Got to see Julia’s Child’s kitchen and Kermit the frog and…well, too many things to list. We definitely have to go back to Washington D.C. when The Max is older AND not in the middle of summer. Way too hot. We’re heat wimps now.

We were originally planning (and had a reservation for) The Inn at Little Washington for our anniversary dinner, but we hadn’t realized how far it was from D.C. It’s over 60 miles and with the rush hour traffic, there was no way to do it. It would have cost us $400 to hire a car to get us out there and back. So we wound up going to Teatro Goldoni instead. It was good (and much, much closer).

Tony and The Max

And that was pretty much it. Tuesday was just a travel day. It was a great trip, though I wish I’d had a chance to hobnob more with my fellow authors. I always feel like I’m somehow missing out on the biggest parties or something. Or I hear about them too late to go. Still, it was an awesome time and we all had a lot of fun. AND we met a ton of librarians. Librarians Rock. And I’m totally not trying to suck up here. I think if I weren’t an author, librarian would be high up on my list of possible other things to be. You know, especially if “independently wealthy and fabulous” weren’t available (which, sadly, it never seems to be).

Oh, and if you want to check out some more of the pictures…here you go (Facebook album)! That’s actually not all of them, since I didn’t figure the whole world would want to see all the dinosaur and rocket photos that The Max kept telling me to take.

I can’t wait for our next trip. Where should we go next? Oh yeah…I still need to pick the Launch contest grand prize winner…

Hmmmmmmmm.

So, where will that next trip be….?