It was an easy and uneventful flight home, and I had a wonderful weekend with the kids. Julia was busy with her volunteering and also attending Bat Mitzvah’s, which seem to be most every weekend lately, so we did not get much time together. But we did get to decorate Halloween cookies together which she still likes to do.  I also got to take my son Adam and his best buddy to a local Fall Festival that was held at a nearby church. Adam even talked me into buying (and carving) a pumpkin early. Here’s a picture of him with his pumpkin of choice and also one of him and his best friend dressed as Jason and Michael Myers at the festival:


On the road to Sunriver, OR

Soon enough I was back on a plane for my third and last trip of the month, headed to Sunriver, OR to conduct an area-wide reservations sales training workshop that owners of several of the vacation rental companies in the area had organized. Since Central Oregon is about as far away as you can from Ft. Lauderdale on the Continental US, it is always a bit of a journey to get there. I usually almost always have excellent luck when I travel, thanks to the travel angels that ride on each shoulder, but this time the Universe had other plans. Arriving in SFO only 30 minutes late, I did a flat out sprint-run of about 1/3 mile to arrive at my United Airlines gate exactly 5 minutes before take-off. You can guess the rest of the story. The gate was closed and despite that the plane was right there, they refused to let another passenger and it board. The trip was already to scheduled to take 10 hours had I made that flight. Instead, they wanted to re-book me on a flight that would have gotten me into Bend/Redmond at 10:30pm, making it a 19 hour trip. Not for this road warrior! Instead I went standby into Portland and rented a car. But I should have listened to the kind lady on the plane who told me a back way to go that would take 3 hours. Instead I went with the advice from the rental car agent who said she used to live up that way, and went another way. Turns out it took over 4 hours! After I exited I-84 headed south to Bend, I figured I would swing in a quick mart and grab some water and snacks, as I had walked right off the plane and right into the car. Little did I know there would be absolutely no place to stop for nearly 2 hours. Even my friend the GPS lady lost contact with me. In the end, my travel angels still delivered me safely to my comfortable condo that my friends at Discover Sunriver, one of the companies who helped me set-up the program, had provided for me. There was even a welcome snack basket.

Even with the travel stress I had a good night’s sleep and woke up excited and ready to train. What I great group I had that day too! They were very high energy and a terrific blend of personalities. It was a really fun experience for me and it felt like a reward for all I’d been through to get there. Here’s a picture of the participants doing one of the training games followed by one of me with the group afterwards: