TLA 2018
Well, that time of year has come and gone once again here in Texas. Spring! No, although...we really didn't get one as our weather has been a bit out of sorts. No, the Texas Library Association annual conference is over. This year it was held down the road in Dallas and so instead of one or two of us going for the week we divided and conquered and let everyone go for a day.
I was lucky enough to go with two lovely and dear friends from work whom I shall refer to as L and M because they may not want their lives splashed upon my blog and that is totally their right. We started our adventure by going...wait for it...to work! I know, amazing and thrilling as that is, it made for a long Wednesday. We left work at 4 and headed out to Dallas to stay overnight because we were lucky enough to have a seat at the Capstone Breakfast that was to happen Thursday morning at 6::30 AM. Yes, you read that right. 6:30 AM!
Anyhow, we piled into my Tahoe (thanks mom-in-law for the vehicular gift) and headed out into the dismal traffic that is DFW. For those of you that have never driven into Dallas, it is like running through a swarm of wasps at 80 miles per hour and hoping not to get stung. Needless to say, we survived with no injury to anyone in my vehicle. And that is truly what mattered because as horrible as this sounds...I care about my people the most.
So anyhow, we get to the hotel...I shall refrain from talking about the service I received before our departure when I called to confirm...but, I will say that Ashley was not helpful. Check in was a jumbled mess of having to have the young man repeat himself. Valet parking was nice and helpful so that was nice. And thus, having parking and room keys taken care of we went upstairs to our room. And we discovered this:
On the almost mile walk to Medina Over & Bar, we saw where Kennedy was shot. And how do we mourn our fallen president? By staging Segway tours from the site of his death. Respectful right? After fighting our way through the traveling see of Segway riders we continued on to our destination. Let me tell you, our service was amazing and our food was better. Medina has a specialty drink menu that they refer to as sexy drinks. Totally cracks me up every time, but my Pomecello Martini was lovely so they can call them whatever they want to. Our dinner was amazing, the company was wonderful as always, and we had a great time.
With full belly's and happy hearts, we traveled back to our mico room to settle in, because 6:30 in the morning is super early and no one needs to look like the walking dead at breakfast. None of us slept well with the amount of light that came through the windows. I mean it was downtown Dallas and we should have been prepared...but, we were not.
Next morning all of are up and at 'em at 430AM. We get ready no problem. Get everything packed and head downstairs to collect the car. We check out, Thomas handles everything beautifully. And, joy of joys, my car is waiting just as I asked and we can go. No traffic over to the convention center. We walk a mile to get to where we need to be, literally. And then comes the process that is check in at the Capstone Breakfast. Y'all, this thing is booked solid and you have to get in line to be verified. I have gone through air port security faster. But we get that done and enter for the raffle (important later I promise) and at 630 they let us in. Now, this is not our first rodeo, we divide and conquer. L goes and secures us a table while M & I start loading plates from the buffet. We get settled and begin to eat. We get nice people at our table. Life is good.
I was lucky enough to go with two lovely and dear friends from work whom I shall refer to as L and M because they may not want their lives splashed upon my blog and that is totally their right. We started our adventure by going...wait for it...to work! I know, amazing and thrilling as that is, it made for a long Wednesday. We left work at 4 and headed out to Dallas to stay overnight because we were lucky enough to have a seat at the Capstone Breakfast that was to happen Thursday morning at 6::30 AM. Yes, you read that right. 6:30 AM!
Anyhow, we piled into my Tahoe (thanks mom-in-law for the vehicular gift) and headed out into the dismal traffic that is DFW. For those of you that have never driven into Dallas, it is like running through a swarm of wasps at 80 miles per hour and hoping not to get stung. Needless to say, we survived with no injury to anyone in my vehicle. And that is truly what mattered because as horrible as this sounds...I care about my people the most.
So anyhow, we get to the hotel...I shall refrain from talking about the service I received before our departure when I called to confirm...but, I will say that Ashley was not helpful. Check in was a jumbled mess of having to have the young man repeat himself. Valet parking was nice and helpful so that was nice. And thus, having parking and room keys taken care of we went upstairs to our room. And we discovered this:
Welcome to the smallest hotel room I have ever stayed in. Now, it was clean. But the space between the beds is exactly as wide as my pilot case. I need you to understand that there are three grown women staying in this room. I took that picture from the farthest corner of the hotel room with no zoom. Not good y'all. The bathroom was basically the same size as the sleeping area.
Oh, and just to make things interesting we found out upon checking that our hotel is the most haunted hotel in Dallas with two murders occurring directly upon us on the tenth floor. So, now I have ghosts and murder and a micro room with tiny beds and rude people on the phone. Awesome sauce. But, we did what all good southern women do, we grabbed our purse and headed out for drinks and dinner.
On the almost mile walk to Medina Over & Bar, we saw where Kennedy was shot. And how do we mourn our fallen president? By staging Segway tours from the site of his death. Respectful right? After fighting our way through the traveling see of Segway riders we continued on to our destination. Let me tell you, our service was amazing and our food was better. Medina has a specialty drink menu that they refer to as sexy drinks. Totally cracks me up every time, but my Pomecello Martini was lovely so they can call them whatever they want to. Our dinner was amazing, the company was wonderful as always, and we had a great time.
With full belly's and happy hearts, we traveled back to our mico room to settle in, because 6:30 in the morning is super early and no one needs to look like the walking dead at breakfast. None of us slept well with the amount of light that came through the windows. I mean it was downtown Dallas and we should have been prepared...but, we were not.
Next morning all of are up and at 'em at 430AM. We get ready no problem. Get everything packed and head downstairs to collect the car. We check out, Thomas handles everything beautifully. And, joy of joys, my car is waiting just as I asked and we can go. No traffic over to the convention center. We walk a mile to get to where we need to be, literally. And then comes the process that is check in at the Capstone Breakfast. Y'all, this thing is booked solid and you have to get in line to be verified. I have gone through air port security faster. But we get that done and enter for the raffle (important later I promise) and at 630 they let us in. Now, this is not our first rodeo, we divide and conquer. L goes and secures us a table while M & I start loading plates from the buffet. We get settled and begin to eat. We get nice people at our table. Life is good.
I was totally content to be sitting at our little breakfast table eating bacon and listening to Saadia Faruqi talk about her new book Meet Yasmin. And then it was doorprize time and my day got better because I won. So, now Alexa lives at my house and is still in the box because the husband is still debating if he wants to let another woman know that much about him and his shopping habits.
After breakfast it was off to the races where I went to some lovely trainings that reminded me why I became a librarian and that "I can't control how people act and react", which I clearly need to hear every single day to stay sane. And before I knew it I was meeting with vendors that will hopefully make my faculty very happy if we can afford what we want. And off to lunch with Dexter and Chris from Ebsco because they are two of my favorite people. And so we talked lots of business and a bit of personal while eating at Medina's again. Yes, I know. I had Morraccan food the night before. But a girl loves her humus and spices. I highly recommend the chickpea soup for lunch. So yummy!
And our busy day came to the beginning of the end when we departed Dallas for our campus. We were tired, we were poor, we might have been the huddled masses. But, we were in good company with not horrible traffic, heading home. All in all it was an excellent adventure and I can't wait to do it again next year.
Comments
Post a Comment