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My last association trip for WASFAA was to the beautiful state of Hawaii for the PacFAA meeting. It was tough for me to explain to my family and the office staff that my visit to Hawaii was strictly for WASFAA business! |
Traveling For WASFAA continued...  My next state meeting to attend was in the golden state
of California. The meeting was in San Diego just before
Christmas. I had to catch the earliest flight out of
Pocatello to make the start of the meeting. The morning
of the flight we were having a near blizzard in Pocatello. It
was pitch black with the snow blowing sideways as I crept
to the airport. When I arrived, the airline rushed us onto
the plane, as they knew that at any moment the airport
could be shut down. Once in the air the flight was fine and
I arrived in sunny San Diego before noon.San Diego in December is beautiful. It was almost 75 degrees by noon with no clouds in sight. I checked into the conference hotel and was given a room that had a stunning view of the bay. Calling home to check in with my wife, I watched the sailboats glide through the bright blue water with that golden sun, as she was describing how she and my sons had to cope with delivering newspapers in the snow and dealing with the 25 degree high for the day. I told her the weather was nice and we should start planning a vacation in San Diego for next December! My next trip was to the Oregon meeting at the Salishan Resort in February. I planned an early arrival in Portland so that I could view the beautiful Oregon countryside on my drive to Salishan. As luck would have it, my flight out of Salt Lake City was delayed for three hours.When I arrived in Portland it was dark and raining. The drive to Salishan takes about two hours with half of it on two lane highways. Driving these two lane highways in the rain was like driving in a dark tunnel. Needless to say, sightseeing was not an option and my main concern was not getting lost. Leaving the Oregon meeting, I had some time so I looked on the map to see if I could drive up the coast and then head directly east to Portland. This looked feasible and not too much difference in distance. So, just north of Lincoln City, I took the highway north up the coast instead of the more direct route. Where the highways diverged, the direct route indicated 85 miles to Portland, I thought driving up the coast couldn't be much further. Unfortunately, it was! I spent an hour cruising up the coast, and on the curvy roads only gained 15 miles. Time became an issue as I realized Portland was still 70 miles away and my flight left in less than two hours. I used my mountain driving skills on the two-lane highway and abandoned any ambition of sightseeing. Even though I got a bit lost in Portland, I managed to arrive at the gate just as the plane was loading. My last association trip for WASFAA was to the beautiful state of Hawaii for the PacFAA meeting. It was tough for me to explain to my family and the office staff that my visit to Hawaii was strictly for WASFAA business! Like traveling to California, the change in climate was dramatic. Leaving Pocatello in 40-degree weather and then arriving in Hawaii in the high 70's. The association meeting was starting later that next morning, so I had some time to spend the beach. My mistake was checking in with my staff after I had spent time on beach. Actually, the real mistake was telling my associate director what I had just been doing. My staff was working to install our new computer system and I am sure that they were not excited about my time spent on a beach in Honolulu. Trying to help make up for my absence from the office at such a critical time, I bought the staff two boxes of chocolate covered macadamia nuts. This gift idea did not work out as I planned. My family's beagle snatched their chocolate covered macadamia nuts off our kitchen counter when no one was around. He then took them out the dog door to our backyard where he ate every chocolate covered macadamia nut. It didn't take a forensic scientist to figure this out, as we had the boxes and wrappers all over our backyard and Shorty the beagle was a good two inches wider! PS: My good friends in the Pacific Islands came to my rescue and provided two more boxes of chocolate covered macadamia nuts at the conference. I immediately gave them to my associate director for safekeeping. These did reach my staff. |
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