Road Warrior

The last eight days have been a whirlwind with multiple trips to Oregon. It’s such a pretty state. I started with a rare direct flight from Boise to Portland. Rare for me because the places I usually fly have no direct flights out of Boise.

This trip was my first ever time attending the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) annual scientific sessions. It’s a pretty big deal in my field with speakers among the top medical professionals in the country. I was proud to be there as an attendee as well as representing my company. It was a mad dash Friday through Sunday. I was happy to see folks I’ve worked with past and present. Had amazing food as one of co-workers finds the best places to eat.

One of the nights, after dinner, we ended up bar hopping. I haven’t done that since my 20’s - and rarely then. We ended up hanging at the third bar - which happened to be hip hop but with a DJ and a saxophone player. They played weird remixes of hip hop, jazz and …wait for it…ABBA. It was surreal but fun.

In another night we had dinner at Departures - with a rooftop view of the city.

I made it back to Boise late Sunday night and went back to work the next day. Wednesday was a work holiday but I ended up flying back to Portland, renting a car and driving to Corvallis about two hours away. It’s a nice drive. On the way, I passed Linn County, which according to the sign is the “Grass Seed Capital of the World”. Who knew? There were a lot of fields that seemed to back up this claim.

I had a lovely dinner and took the time to smell the roses on my way back to the hotel.

That’s one thing I try to do on each of my trips - to spend time noticing what’s there in the landscape. I try to identify trees or flowers. I try to walk outside and breathe. It’s grounding. It helps me remember the places I’ve been - what they smelled like or sounded like or looked like.

For instance, when I breathe in my favorite Scotch whiskey, the smell transports me straight back to Scotland. I can see fields of heather, green mountains, feel the mist rolling in. It’s the same when I smell honeysuckle. That takes me right back to summer days as a child spent exploring country dirt roads and pastures. Standing on my pony’s back to pick pears from a tree.

Using all of my senses as I travel is important to me. Including my sense of humor! It’s why I enjoy finding weird things, funny signs or customs. Not to make fun of them, but just truly enjoying the different perspectives. One of the restaurants we visited in Portland tickled me. Their bathroom had a coded lock on the door. But they taped the code to the door above the handle. Think about that. What’s the point of the lock? We decided it’s a drunk test. If you’re too drunk to read and enter the code, you’re cut off. 😂😂😂

And speaking of humor, Southwest has some of the funniest flight attendant speeches. On one of my flights back (seriously my travel company sent me first to Sacramento, then to Portland; and on the way back to Oakland, then to Boise. I really think they have serious jokers working there.) the flight attendant was doing the safety speech. When you’ve heard it multiple times a week for almost 7 months now, it’s very refreshing to get a humorous version. She got to the part about the life vest after buckling it on and said, “To inflate the vest, pull the cord at the bottom. If that doesn’t work, use the red tube to blow in. If neither of those work, it’s not a very good day. But at least we have a light beacon so we can find you in the water.” 😂😂😂😂

Those funny attendants make my day sometimes. I was so tired on the last flight to Boise that I ordered a drink and slept through the delivery. Then I ended up on the shuttle to the economy lot at 11 pm crammed in with 10 airline employees who were complaining about the parking and harassing the shuttle driver to get moving. I guess when you work a stressful job with the public, you end up taking that stress out on someone. It makes you pause and think about how you treat others when you’re frustrated. Hmmmm. Definitely something to ponder.

At any rate, as always, thanks for reading! Go forth and travel. Experience. Live life fully. And be nice.

Gypsy Jules