Glorious Washington State

This week my work has taken me to the great Northwest yet again. Quite a pain-in-the schlep, from home in Florida. In fact, Tuesday's trip involved 3 flights - JAX - ATL - SLC - GEG (Jacksonville, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Spokane), a very long day of flying. But Washington is worth the trip.

Spokane is surrounded by "gentle" mountains. The environment is green, and the pines rise grandly from the hillsides. A cute little downtown with a great parks system and trails galore. After presenting in Spokane, I rode to Pasco, in South-Central Washington. I traveled a desert, including tumbleweed and views that went endlessly into the horizon. The sands gave way to more hillsides, covered with the vineyards that provide the Willamette Valley wines.Thursday evening, after the presentation in Pasco, it was a little prop flight to Seattle. We kept it pretty low, just skirting the tops of the Cascades, providing an incredible view of Mt. Rainier. It seemed that I could reach out the window and touch the breathtakingly immaculate white mountaintops. There's something so sexy about the way the mountains rise with their voluptuous curves and how they stand so tall against the horizon. Coming into Seattle, the Puget Sound nestles the downtown skyscrapers, and hosts mountain-topped islands in the distance. It is hard to imagine a more incredible landscape, all within the boundaries of a single state.

Definitely Better Digs

Okay, so when the hotels stink I complain. This one's nice enough that I feel homesick. Staying in a nicer place is what we do as a family. Instead of being 3,000 miles apart, we should be deciding who will get the ice from the machine (my favorite job as a kid) or who will phone the front desk for the wake-up call. So, here I am (in Ontario, California, MJ!)

Jacuzzi Jettin'

A Cozy Corner
Nifty Natural Light

Fancy Furnishings

Bodacious Bed

A Sweet Suite

Illinois Seminar Run

The chimes of mediocrity at the Clock Tower in Rockford, Illinois were just the beginning of a weeklong crescendo to Springfield Illinois's Signature Inn.

I am here to present myself as a positive professional, a representative of a national company built upon a strong belief in the best interests of educators. Teachers are invited to come, to open their minds (and their wallets) in order to further the learning of their students, an act of selflessness that entitles them to some respect, I think.

And what of the staff and presenters? For better or worse, we must come out on the road to connect with the teachers who can make the changes in the classroom. This means forfeiting family time, losing leisurely hours lounging at home, and hobbling from one hideous hotel to the next. But even we, the sturdy road warriors, have our breaking points.


Interesting bedding entrails.


Soiled seating for the seminar.

The slashes in the sheet.

Bloody blemishes on the blanket?

Curious curtain contamination.

New wallpapering technique?