Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Great Northwest to Deep (Hot) South
We had an interesting (long and hot) trip. We went to Seattle for their Leadership Conference. It was a short time there—flew in on Friday and their event started Friday night. That always makes it hard, because they are still going strong at 10 pm, but that’s midnight to us! And especially when we had to get up at 4:30 am to catch our flight—we are really beat by the time they end. And then it seems like I’m still waking up at 5 am (their time—7 am our time). So I loose a bit of sleep on these west coast trips.
The conference went very well—it was held at Clover Park Technical College and we were in the auto mechanics building. There were huge bays that were the teaching sites for brakes, transmission, upholstery, etc. And our classroom was this wonderful round room with huge windows—they told us later that it was the car showroom.
Bob and I celebrated our 34th anniversary while we were there—so I brought him along for supper on Saturday night. It was catered and really good BBQ pork and chicken.
We were on the red-eye, so after the conference ended Sunday at 1:00 pm—we had quite a few hours to kill before we caught our flight at midnight. So we drove up to Gig Harbor on a beautiful scenic roadway—there were lots of trees and great views of the sound. Then we caught the ferry for a two-hour ride to Seattle. It was cool, but so beautiful being out on the water.
Our timing wasn’t the best however—when we arrived at downtown Seattle—the Mariners baseball game was just getting out—so we ended up in tons of traffic. But after slowly going around a couple blocks, we went into a parking ramp. We walked over to the harbor and wandered among the shops and fountains that are there. Several people had suggested that we eat at the Crab Pot—a really fun restaurant where they put butcher paper on the table and then ‘dump’ your meal of crab legs, mussels, oysters, clams, shrimp, Italian sausage, and hunks of red potatoes and corn on the cob, right on the table. Each person gets a small piece of wood for a plate, a wooden mallet, a small fork, melted butter, lots of napkins, and a bib. Everything (except the shrimp) was delicious!! Neither of us cared for the shrimp much.
We left Seattle at 12:30 am PT, arrived in Mpls at 5:30 am CT, left at 8 am for Atlanta—arrived there at 10 am ET, and hung around the airport until 4 pm ET when we left for Jackson. We finally got to Jackson at 4:30 pm CT. It was nice that we had gotten upgraded to first class from Seattle to Mpls and Mpls to Atlanta, but it wasn’t nice that we didn’t sleep too well and then had that long wait in Atlanta. I would rather spend a day in the Mpls airport than three hours in Atlanta. It’s noisy, there’s no place to get out of the crush of people, and the waiting areas are not comfortable.
In Jackson, I was involved with meetings most of the time—so Bob was on his own, but he was getting ready for his class. It was very hot there—over 100 degrees most days and humid. What bothers me the most is that it doesn’t cool off at night at all—so when you walk out of the hotel at 6 am—it’s still in the 80’s. We did have a couple interesting meals—one night we went out with the Int’l Officers and Faye. We went to Julep Restaurant—which is really a lot of fun—one of their specialties is fried green tomatoes—and a fried chicken meal (everything down south is fried!) On Thursday night we went out with our friends Susan and Jeff and went to Chars—which is really good and we had a great time with Susan and Jeff—they are really neat people!!
We left early the next morning for home—and this was one time that I was very glad to get home!
The conference went very well—it was held at Clover Park Technical College and we were in the auto mechanics building. There were huge bays that were the teaching sites for brakes, transmission, upholstery, etc. And our classroom was this wonderful round room with huge windows—they told us later that it was the car showroom.Bob and I celebrated our 34th anniversary while we were there—so I brought him along for supper on Saturday night. It was catered and really good BBQ pork and chicken.
We were on the red-eye, so after the conference ended Sunday at 1:00 pm—we had quite a few hours to kill before we caught our flight at midnight. So we drove up to Gig Harbor on a beautiful scenic roadway—there were lots of trees and great views of the sound. Then we caught the ferry for a two-hour ride to Seattle. It was cool, but so beautiful being out on the water.
Our timing wasn’t the best however—when we arrived at downtown Seattle—the Mariners baseball game was just getting out—so we ended up in tons of traffic. But after slowly going around a couple blocks, we went into a parking ramp. We walked over to the harbor and wandered among the shops and fountains that are there. Several people had suggested that we eat at the Crab Pot—a really fun restaurant where they put butcher paper on the table and then ‘dump’ your meal of crab legs, mussels, oysters, clams, shrimp, Italian sausage, and hunks of red potatoes and corn on the cob, right on the table. Each person gets a small piece of wood for a plate, a wooden mallet, a small fork, melted butter, lots of napkins, and a bib. Everything (except the shrimp) was delicious!! Neither of us cared for the shrimp much.We left Seattle at 12:30 am PT, arrived in Mpls at 5:30 am CT, left at 8 am for Atlanta—arrived there at 10 am ET, and hung around the airport until 4 pm ET when we left for Jackson. We finally got to Jackson at 4:30 pm CT. It was nice that we had gotten upgraded to first class from Seattle to Mpls and Mpls to Atlanta, but it wasn’t nice that we didn’t sleep too well and then had that long wait in Atlanta. I would rather spend a day in the Mpls airport than three hours in Atlanta. It’s noisy, there’s no place to get out of the crush of people, and the waiting areas are not comfortable.
In Jackson, I was involved with meetings most of the time—so Bob was on his own, but he was getting ready for his class. It was very hot there—over 100 degrees most days and humid. What bothers me the most is that it doesn’t cool off at night at all—so when you walk out of the hotel at 6 am—it’s still in the 80’s. We did have a couple interesting meals—one night we went out with the Int’l Officers and Faye. We went to Julep Restaurant—which is really a lot of fun—one of their specialties is fried green tomatoes—and a fried chicken meal (everything down south is fried!) On Thursday night we went out with our friends Susan and Jeff and went to Chars—which is really good and we had a great time with Susan and Jeff—they are really neat people!!
We left early the next morning for home—and this was one time that I was very glad to get home!
# posted by bjm @ 9:31 AM 
