Okie Dokie gang, time to hit the road again! Off to Portland, OR, for a CPO Instructor School this week. Due to time constraints, I'm taking the 'friendly skies' this trip, so all the posts will be Portland based.
Not looking forward to the flights, you all know by now how I feel about air travel. Fortunately, I got decent flight times, and reasonable stopover times. Denver stopover going out, and ugggh, O'Hare on the way back, and having the trip broken up into two relatively short trips beats the 6 hour nonstop run.
Now, I've not been to Portland before, I had a chance to go there back when I worked for Mid Atlantic, and we represented products by Columbia Cascade, which is based in Portland. Had a conflict on the trip dates and couldn't go, and was told "you'd really like Portland, it's a real 'hippie city'. Now, why anyone would think I would enjoy a 'hippie' anything is a mystery to me, but I'll play along. Fortunately, one of my buddies who works for the Swimming Pool Foundation has spent a lot of time in Portland, and we'll have him to guide us while we're there. Looking forward to some good meals and craft brews.
I'll say so long to Portland on Thursday, come home, and have a quick turnaround before heading out next Sunday for the NRPA Annual Congress for Parks, which is being held in Charlotte, NC. No time issues on that one, so the Bluecuda and I will take I-81 south and enjoy the fall scenery on the trip down and back.
NRPA is always a good conference, I usually find a couple of good educational sessions to attend, I run into people that I've known for a long time, and the exhibit hall is always fun to walk through. I'm giving a session on Wednesday the 15th, and heading back home on Thursday. NRPA has some good socials planned, including one at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, so I'm hoping to get some good posts up from NC. And, of course, there will be some fun food posts as well - and yes, for those who are wondering, I will be within the sphere of influence of Jack In The Box; and you all know what that means!
So keep your eyes peeled for the blogs, I'll let you all know on Facebook when a new post is up.