Yet in crossing mid-town Manhattan on the side street I’d selected, it seemed to take forever.  Then I suddenly realized that despite all my years of experience in living in and visiting to New York, I somehow managed to make a wrong turn and instead of heading West to escape the city, I had now ended up back on the East Side, just two blocks away from the start of the street closures!   It was only due to my courage to take an illegal left turn heading north on 5^th Avenue right in front of a police officer that I escaped the literal gridlock.  But this delay cost me nearly an hour, and now I was smack in the middle of rush hour.  So my two hour leisurely drive to The Poconos ended up taking nearly 4 hours.

Upon arrival at Split Rock I always get flashbacks to so many many trips, having been coming here to train for over 15 years and having had my wedding to Cathy Cook here just over a year ago.  This time I was to deliver the train-the-trainer version of my new “Hostmasters” hospitality program.   While presenting I looked out at the audience and was amazed to think about how many times some of them in particular had been through my training, and at the end when several of the participants such as Abdul, the restaurant manager and “The Chief” said it was my best training yet it meant a lot more than he could have imagined.

The good part was that I only had a half-day of training on day one, and having arrived so late from New York City I even got to sleep in.  After the training I even had a little energy left for an evening jog in the cool fall mountain air.  For the first time ever in over 15 years of coming to Split Rock Resort to train, I actually jogged all the way up to see the original “Split Rock” itself!  Here’s a picture of me with the managers, including from left Abul, their Restaurant Manager, Rodriguez, their Assistant General Manager, and Sam Arnett, their VP/General Manager.