Hot Springs

Don't you love it when you end up with a swanky room at a super hotel that you didn't have to pay for? I know I do! I had a suite all to myself with a king size bed and 36 inch LCD TV with a separate living room/kitchen area that looked out onto the Hot Springs National Park. It was so nice. And for breakfast, none of that skimpy continental fruit. It was the big daddy. There was a cook-to-order chef who would make you pancakes, omelets, fresh bacon or sausage... MmmmMmmmMmmm. So good. But do you think I was able to partake in any of that? Ah...NO!! And that's a big fat NO! I was barely in my room long enough to enjoy it. And as for breakfast, they didn't open until 7am and we had to be out the door by 6:30. So much for getting all of the perks!!

We used the Hots Springs Convention Center for 2 of our sessions and another hotel in town for the third session. The convention center was very classy. Lots of art, photography, and modern furniture everywhere. However, the hotel we used for the last day did not compare to the convention center one bit! When we first met with the event managers, they scrambled desperately to find our file, and then notified us that they had to squeeze our event into a smaller room because the air conditioner in the building broke. The room they moved us to had A/C though. Their new A/C wasn't going to arrive for another 3 weeks. They were in the middle of renovations. Stained wallpaper, faded carpet, broken lights, dusty old chandeliers, holes in the walls, oh yeah...and this...

Luckily, the duct tape was only there for our preliminary tour and not the conference. But the stained carpet and walls weren't going anywhere.

Here's Viki performing "Delta Dawn" in front of our INCREDIBLY chipped podium.

This is me posing with some guys I met that let me go fishing with them. Look at that big fish I brought home!!

Here I am with Shannon, another conference helper, at the Hot Springs National Park.

In this picture, I am retrieving my purse that I dropped off of a cliff. After making my way down the mountain in flip-flops, I finally found it resting in a holly bush. OUCH!