This June I made a trip back east to Pennsylvania to speak at WordCamp Philadelphia and to visit family in Pittsburgh. It was a whirlwind, as these trips tend to be, but I’m so glad I got to spend some time in my home state visiting old friends and meeting new ones.
WordCamp Philly
I swear I didn’t just have a good time in Philadelphia because of the cheesesteaks, though they were certainly a bonus :)
The entire event radiated a welcoming, educational atmosphere during the day, and during the breaks and social events you couldn’t walk more than a foot or two without bumping into someone pleasantly engaging. Aaron Jorbin delivered a thought-provoking keynote titled Why WordPress Works This Way that lent insight into how the open source project works and makes decisions that help power 24(!) percent of the internet.
I also spoke at this WordCamp about getting started with the CSS preprocessor Sass (slides available here) to a packed room in the Design track. I enjoy sharing knowledge at meetups in Phoenix and it was great to have a chance to share with the Philadelphia community as well.
I ended up taking very few photos of the event — I was enjoying my time and soaking it all in. Below is a short gallery from exploring the city, but if you’d like to see more photos from the WordCamp I highly recommend you check out Mendel Kurland’s WCPhilly recap or one of the other photo sets listed in the Photos From WordCamp Philly blog post.
Philadelphia, PA
Even though I grew up in Pittsburgh, I admittedly had never spent any time on the east side of the state. This seemed like a good opportunity to remedy that, so I took advantage of the trip and did a little sight seeing with my mom.
Longwood Gardens
On the way back to Pittsburgh we visited the stunning Longwood Gardens after staying a night in Kennett Square, PA, and it was absolutely worth it despite the 70% humidity and slightly overcast weather. The only disappointment was that they opened too late in the morning (9AM) and the light for photography became less than ideal very quickly. I still managed to get some shots I liked, though:
It’s always a pleasure to travel back east. A little under a year ago I was visiting Pennsylvania after attending WordCamp Columbus, and for another year in a row I’m hesitant to head back to the Phoenix heat!