Tradeshows Round1

Last Wednesday morning began a series of tourism conferences I'll be attending over the next 2 months. The first show was a very small one in Anaheim and I liked the intimacy of really getting to know the other attendees. I hardly got to enjoy the outdoors, but here is evidence that I was in fact, in southern California, as seen by the lush greenery and flowers. One of the nights a group of us went to the House of Blues with some of our clients. When my co-worker had first told me that most of the CVB (Convention & Visitors Bureau) employees were middle-aged women, I narrow-mindedly didn't imagine a healthy nightlife. But while everyone sat with their wine glasses and me with my milkshake ("I'm off the sauce" I would say) the woman next to me told of how she dumped her boyfriend in college because when she arranged for them go to skydiving with some friends he was the only one that couldn't do it, he started crying in the plane. This story was followed by several other stories that could have kept me entertained for hours.

The next night we flew to Portland, arrived super-late, and after a huge room-change fiasco, went to bed. I got placed in a suite because the room they put my co-worker and I in had just one bed so we got a free upgrade. It had huge windows that wrapped around 2 sides of the bedroom and looked out on the Columbia river. I slept in, had breakfast, returned and took a bath, walked to the nearby "super center" and hung out at Barnes and Noble. That night I met up with some old friends of mine that I used to live with in Longview, Washington. They took me out and we discussed their grandson who is in rehab, their other grandkids, travel, my family, and life in general.

It was nice to have a day to relax between conferences, but made me miss the HB even more. I had some weird dreams while there too, maybe because of the new environment. One night I dreamt I was being shot at and finally sat up in bed gasping when one of the bullets nicked my neck. The next night I dreamt that I had taken some photos while hiking and as I looked at the photos, I realized I had hiked along the trail right past a white tiger without even seeing him before--I had taken a picture of the tree and he was laying right next to it, his head and front part of his body totally exposed. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen him. Those were the two dreams I remember.

On the flights over, I'd read a book called "The Delivery Man" about a guy who drives Las Vegas prostitutes to their appointments. After that I felt like staying in a suite should involve a large amount of alcohol and drugs, but instead, Sunday night of the tradeshow I relaxed and watched a movie.

The next day in Portland, the conference put on a Dine-Around for dinner and I went with my co-workers and a large group to Henry's Tavern--home to over 200 brews of Weinhardt's beer. I had the Root Beer of course. We were joined by a local who worked with Washington County CVB just outside of Portland and had a good time exchanging crazy travel and work abroad stories.

Also got to see Portland's local School of Rock band play some tunes at the before-dinner reception. I was really impressed with one of the young guitarists, as I was when I saw Salt lake City's School of Rock band play a couple of years ago. It was too bad most people were taking advantage of that time to change before dinner because they were really fun to watch. This kid totally rocked.


And finally, last night I was very very happy to be home.