I Wonder as I Wander…

Bob had a meeting in Columbus, Ohio. We’ve been in that area before (actually twice this past summer) and there are lots of things to see and do in that area, but this time we didn’t have a car and our hotel was in the middle of nowhere. To make matters worse, the only restaurant that was in walking distance (some others were close enough, but there were no sidewalks along busy roads) was a Waffle House. We ate lunch there and then later the same day went there for dinner—it was pretty blah.

In my travels, I like to talk about the neat things we see and do and also the great restaurants and food we eat. This trip didn’t have any of those.

Here I go with a lot of quick trip posts from last fall….

We did a fairly quick trip to Los Angeles area. I visited some chapters and also chartered a new chapter in Oxnard, which is between LA and Santa Barbara. It’s funny, I’ve never heard of some of these places, but after I learn that I’m going someplace, I hear about it on TV shows or that someone knows someone who lives there. Oxnard was no exception—on TV there was a reference to someone having to move to Oxnard—not the Oxnard by the ocean, but the Oxnard with all the onion fields. And we saw both.

We left LA area and decided that we would go to a seafood restaurant along the ocean. We stopped at one place and it was actually a burger joint (and kind of a dive). We asked about seafood (since there was a big sign out front) and he said “Oh you’ll have to go next door”, but there was no one there—it was like a fish market. So we left and found a neat restaurant in Oxnard called the Lobster Trap. It was really good. Then the next night the new advisor suggested we go out to eat and said “How about this really great restaurant—The Lobster Trap?” So we ate there twice, but it was well worth it.

One morning, we decided we needed to get our exercise. Should we go to the fitness center and work out, or should we go to the beach for a walk along the ocean?? Guess where we went! I love the ocean!

Another fun thing that happened on this trip was at a steakhouse. We tend to eat a good breakfast at the hotel, have an apple or granola bar during the day and then eat supper around 5 pm. We have learned that not many people in California eat that early—most of the restaurants are empty. So we went to this Steakhouse and as we walked in, there were about 5 people sitting at the bar talking quite loud and laughing a lot. There was no one in the dining area, but they assured us that they were open. We ordered our meal and while we were waiting, one of the guys from the bar walked by our table on his way to the rest room; he stopped and apologized for their group being so loud. He said they are all in the wine business and don’t get a chance to get together very often, so they have a really good time when they do. We assured him that they weren’t bothering us. He offered to buy us a drink, but we said that we don’t really drink. Later the waitress came and told us that the group had paid for our meals. WOW how nice was that!

We flew from LA to Fargo, so I could go to a leadership conference in Alex (home of Big Ole). Our flight was changed due to some bad weather, so we ended up getting into Fargo later than expected. But we got there just in time for an advisor reception, so I got to visit with a lot of my friends. When we left the following day, we were in the Fargo airport and were surprised to bump into my nephew’s in-laws in the airport. What a small world.

This was written a long time ago, but I'm just getting around to posting it. My goal is to get caught up in the next week or so....

After a short, but really nice visit with Naomi—she’s growing so fast and really happy most of the time—lots of smiles and giggles.

We had to get up early Monday morning to catch a plane for Boston—everything was pretty uneventful. Planes were on time, rental car was ready and traffic wasn’t too bad to get to our hotel. We found a great seafood restaurant close to our hotel called Finz. That night we had to stay up late to watch Monday night football (MN vs. Green Bay). Since I’d just been to Green Bay and Brett Farve has moved to the Vikings—there was a lot of talk about the game. It was a good game—especially since the Vikings came out on top.

The next day, I had a meeting at a college that was close to our hotel—only about 10 miles, but we ended up in construction and very slow moving traffic and then the road we were suppose to turn on was blocked—so we got to the college right as my meeting was scheduled to start. Bob dropped me off right at the door and a security guard brought me to the room.

That night was when the MN Twins were playing Detroit Tigers in a playoff game for the Central Division Championship (Yay, they won!). However, it was another late night. We watched more sports than we had for a long time.

The next morning, we got up very early to take the T into downtown Boston. When we checked in to the hotel, the clerk told us the best way to get downtown was to take the T—and there was a station right around the corner. He gave us the timetable for the train and we were figuring how to get to the college. I asked the desk clerk a whole lot of questions and directions. We even decided we didn’t need to leave quite as early as we originally planned.

We were fortunate, because as we were leaving the hotel it started sprinkling, as we were crossing the train tracks it was raining a little harder. When we got to the shelter, it started to pour. As I was riding the T, my mind kept repeating the Kingston Trio lyrics ‘did he ever return? No, he never returned and his fate is still unknown…’ But we didn’t have any issues and it was a very nice ride and walk through downtown Boston to go to Ben Franklin Institute of Technology. That afternoon, we visited another college.

We checked out of the hotel and headed for southern Mass and Rhode Island. The trees were absolutely beautiful. I’ve often heard of New England in the Fall, and I think it would be even prettier farther north, but there was still some spectacular scenery. I had one visit in Fall River—we had some time before the meeting, so sat in Battleship Park and ate lunch. We could see huge battleships right on the harbor.

We headed south and crossed over into Rhode Island, went though Newport and got into Warwick where the Leadership Conference was being held. The hotel was a Crowne Plaza, which was pretty fancy. The conference was held at CC of Rhode Island which was very close to the hotel. We could see this huge round building up on the hill and wondered if it was the college. When we got there we saw it was the college and a very distinct shape. I mentioned it was ‘interesting’ and several students laughed and said ‘you mean ugly, don’t you?’ They told me it was in the shape of a submarine—and really had that theme throughout the entire building. Some of the windows looked like portholes; the bathrooms looked like stainless steel metal cabinets and everything was stainless steel inside.

Bob met up with Joe, one of his high school classmates, and his wife. They picked me up and we went out to eat at a Legal’s Seafood. I had a cup of clam chowder, but Joe thought we needed to try several things, so he ordered raw clams on the half-shell and a bucket of steamers. We had to try them all. The raw clams were a lot like raw oysters. The steamers had to be peeled to get the sand off them. Then you swished them in broth to wash them off. They were very good.

The next night we moved back to the same hotel we were in the first couple nights, since it was pretty close to the airport. Sunday, we flew in to Hibbing and were able to spend a few days with Naomi.