Pacific Northwest Trip Sep/Oct 2013
I'm way behind on writing about our trips, so here is a review of our trip to the Pacific Northwest in September/October 2013.
Shortly after Worldcon 2013 (San Antonio, TX) I learned that my role for Worldcon 2015 (Spokane, WA) would be as Deputy Division Head for the Convention Center. Two weeks after winning the bid I met with my Sasquan (official name for Worldcon 2015) Division Head, Bruce Farr (also the Finance Division Head), for a meeting in Phoenix, AZ. He had just moved to the Bay Area, but was in the process of selling his home and doing CPA work for clients in the Valley of the Sun. As we were meeting at a nearby Applebee's restaurant we were going over the Spokane Convention Center contract when I mentioned the issue of formally activating the DoubleTree Hotel contract. They were giving us two weeks to activate the clause in the signed contract to move forward with a full contract. We decided to give one of the Co-Chairs a call, Bobbie DuFault, who lived near Seattle, WA. So I called her cell phone and reached a guy. When I asked who it was he replied Gene (Armstrong). I then asked why he had Bobbie's phone and he replied that she had passed away earlier that day! OMG! Gene gave me what details he had before I hung up to fill Bruce in. We finished our meeting, going over details of my duties and what we needed to work on in the short term, then I gave the other Co-Chair, Sally Woehrle, a call. She gave me a few more details, but mostly everyone was waiting for the autopsy results. I asked Sally if she needed me to do something else for Sasquan and she said yes, offering me a Vice Chair position. She explained with Bobbie's passing she needed to fill a third VC job and she wanted me, so I said yes. Suddenly, I was Bruce's boss. The next day I participated in a Skype call with Sally, Glenn Glazer (VC over Business & Finance divisions) and Pierre Pettinger (VC over Front of House divisions). I am the VC over Back of House divisions (Convention Center, Facilities [hotels], Hospitality, Operations and Services). We discussed meeting in Spokane asap to visit the hotels and the convention center to move forward with the convention details. We settled on the last weekend in September 2013 due to our schedules; Pierre couldn't make it, but we opened it up to any Division Heads (DHs) interested. I contacted the Spokane Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB, aka Visit Spokane) and arranged for a discounted room block and site visits for the folks able to attend.
When I learned that Bobbie's memorial would be the first weekend in October 2013 I discussed the trip with my wife, Jean, and we decided to stay in the area to attend both Sasquan's meeting in Spokane and Bobbie's memorial near Seattle. In planning the trip we realized that Yellowstone National Park was close enough to visit and neither of us had been. So we came up with the idea of driving up to Spokane from Phoenix, then post-meeting heading into Montana and dropping south into the park. We could drive through it in a day and stay south of there before returning to the Seattle area for the following weekend. Jean asked about driving along the coast to return home, so I planned that out as well.
We left home on Wed Sep 25 for an overnight stay north of Salt Lake City, UT. Things went well until we got close to Page, AZ, when we learned that US89 was closed due to a collapsed roadway! We got detoured east onto the Navajo Reservation until Kayenta (where we found out about the Navajo Codetalkers Museum) and then back to Page. We finally arrived at our hotel well after midnight and crashed immediately. Thu Sep 26 we departed and headed north along I-15, passing into Idaho and ultimately Montana, the first time for both of us there. Snow along the freeway in MT was quite beautiful, thankfully not on the road. We intersected with I-90 and headed northwest into northern ID and finally eastern WA for our next hotel east of Spokane. Coeur d'Alene, ID, was quite beautiful being located along a lake. We hope to get back there someday.
Fri Sep 27 we checked out of our hotel, shopped at Costco, grabbed lunch and headed into downtown Spokane to the Red Lion At The Park for our convention meeting stay. We checked in and met up with folks as they arrived: Sally, Bruce, Becky Thomson (Services DH) and later on Glenn. We had arranged for a CVB meeting to learn about the housing bureau system they were proposing we use for the convention. Bruce arrived in time to make the meeting with most of us along with Amy and Ashley from the CVB. They put the tech support person from Vancouver (BC) on the phone as we got our demo so we could ask questions. We were suitably impressed and decided to use the HB after doing a core dump with Glenn when he arrived that night. Sally and I also met with the sales rep for the DT about the proposed hotel contract after discussing some minor issues we wanted changed. We did dinner together and met up in the lounge after I fetched Glenn from the airport.
Sat Sep 28 we met for breakfast at the hotel, did our site visits with the Red Lion, DoubleTree and Davenport Hotels as well as the SCC. We did lunch nearby in the middle of the visits, then dinner at the Davenport which was quite good. We discussed lots of details until we ran out of steam and called it a night.
Sun Sep 29 we met again for breakfast, toured the SCC again, lunch nearby and met in one of the function rooms to hash out where we might put stuff as a starting point. Dealers Room could go here; Hugo Ceremony might go there. I took Glenn back to the airport and the rest met for dinner downtown before crashing early.
Mon Sep 30 we checked out and headed back to MT for an overnight stay just north of Yellowstone NP. The drive was gorgeous and we arrived in early evening. There were numerous tours staying there hoping to visit the park the next day. Unfortunately, the federal government was talking about sequester (shutting down non-essential services) and everyone was worried they wouldn't get in. That night we saw on the news that it was going to happen :(
Tue Oct 1 the US federal government closed all national parks and our plans to visit Yellowstone died with that announcement. Just in case I called the park phone number only to receive a recording that they were closed until further notice. Sucks! There was no way for us to drive south directly to our hotel stay in Jackson Hole, WY, so we checked the map and decided to go around. We backtracked into ID, headed south, then east and entered Wyoming from the southwest. North to JH and we arrived at our hotel. We would have cancelled, but they required 72 hours notice and I didn't feel like fighting it. We had a nice stay otherwise, other than the noise of water running down our wall periodically throughout the night; it turned out to be a water pipe that was scheduled to be rerouted that week.
Wed Oct 2 we left Jackson Hole for Boise, ID. We drove through southern Idaho and saw lots of potato farms. It was an uneventful drive and we checked into our hotel without incident.
Thu Oct 3 we checked out and headed towards Vancouver, WA for our next stay. We drove west through southern ID, entered Oregon from the east and stopped briefly in Portland to visit Powell's Bookstore (largest new/used bookstore in North America). Due to the pricing of hotels in that area I found that Vancouver had better rates. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant nearby that was pretty good. We spent the rest of the evening online catching up on email.
Fri Oct 4 we hit another Costco for shopping and arrived at our hotel near SeaTac Airport. We didn't need to be close to the airport, but debated whether to be near the memorial (east of Seattle in Gold Bar) or near where Sally and Becky lived. In the end we opted for the latter. Due to their schedules we didn't meet up with them; instead Jean and I met with a friend for an early dinner near Yelm, WA, whom we knew from online in the 80s. He had suffered a stroke, recovered slowly and was finally able to function independently again. We had wondered why we didn't hear much from him for several years, but were glad he was doing as well as he was. Later that evening we met with Gene east of Seattle. We did dessert at Denny's and chatted about his background & experience, how Sasquan's structure started out, my involvement, etc. We returned to our hotel.
Sat Oct 5 we visited spots nearby before heading to Gold Bar for the memorial. It was crowded! Over 150 people there. Since the house was near a state park along one road they had folks picking up and dropping off those walking more than about a quarter mile down the road. I dropped Jean off and went to park, taking photos along the way. We chatted with friends, met some new ones, met some relatives after the service, ate and drank before leaving about dark. The service was quite good with many getting up to talk about Bobbie and how she changed their lives for the best. I have seen very few services that were that well attended or with heartfelt presentations. It was a tribute to how loved Bobbie was. We returned to our hotel near SeaTac.
Sun Oct 6 we departed for the coastline and headed south into OR. We stopped occasionally for photos, ultimately staying overnight in Newport. We ate dinner at a nearby seafood restaurant which had good oyster stew.
Mon Oct 7 we left Newport for Eureka, CA. It was more of the same: photos, lunch, beautiful scenery, hotel, dinner. We did Cajun/Caribbean and it wasn't bad, although a bit expensive.
Tue Oct 8 we departed for Gilroy, CA. I had schedule to join Glenn and his wife for dinner with Bruce and his wife, but Jean wasn't feeling well. So I dropped her off at the hotel and headed to Glenn's home near Santa Cruz. It turned out that due to the delay it was just the three of us. We hit a restaurant nearby, then returned for an early night due to his work schedule. I got back to Gilroy and crashed.
Wed Oct 9 we left for Glendale, CA. Instead of Hwy 1 we did mostly US101. After checking into our hotel we headed to Burger Continental in Pasadena for dinner. A favorite spot with JPL engineers we were introduced to it years ago by a friend who used to work there. Despite the name they are mostly Mediterranean cuisine with belly dancing on the weekends. We returned to our hotel for email.
Thu Oct 10 we left for home and arrived in time to fetch the dog from boarding. Then came the tasks that happen after every trip: unload the car, clean up the messes that the cats leave for us each trip, and slowly get back into the groove.
Overall, the trip was a mixture of audiobooks, scenery, interesting meetings, frustration at the gov't, emotional release with friends, good food and memorable times.
Shortly after Worldcon 2013 (San Antonio, TX) I learned that my role for Worldcon 2015 (Spokane, WA) would be as Deputy Division Head for the Convention Center. Two weeks after winning the bid I met with my Sasquan (official name for Worldcon 2015) Division Head, Bruce Farr (also the Finance Division Head), for a meeting in Phoenix, AZ. He had just moved to the Bay Area, but was in the process of selling his home and doing CPA work for clients in the Valley of the Sun. As we were meeting at a nearby Applebee's restaurant we were going over the Spokane Convention Center contract when I mentioned the issue of formally activating the DoubleTree Hotel contract. They were giving us two weeks to activate the clause in the signed contract to move forward with a full contract. We decided to give one of the Co-Chairs a call, Bobbie DuFault, who lived near Seattle, WA. So I called her cell phone and reached a guy. When I asked who it was he replied Gene (Armstrong). I then asked why he had Bobbie's phone and he replied that she had passed away earlier that day! OMG! Gene gave me what details he had before I hung up to fill Bruce in. We finished our meeting, going over details of my duties and what we needed to work on in the short term, then I gave the other Co-Chair, Sally Woehrle, a call. She gave me a few more details, but mostly everyone was waiting for the autopsy results. I asked Sally if she needed me to do something else for Sasquan and she said yes, offering me a Vice Chair position. She explained with Bobbie's passing she needed to fill a third VC job and she wanted me, so I said yes. Suddenly, I was Bruce's boss. The next day I participated in a Skype call with Sally, Glenn Glazer (VC over Business & Finance divisions) and Pierre Pettinger (VC over Front of House divisions). I am the VC over Back of House divisions (Convention Center, Facilities [hotels], Hospitality, Operations and Services). We discussed meeting in Spokane asap to visit the hotels and the convention center to move forward with the convention details. We settled on the last weekend in September 2013 due to our schedules; Pierre couldn't make it, but we opened it up to any Division Heads (DHs) interested. I contacted the Spokane Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB, aka Visit Spokane) and arranged for a discounted room block and site visits for the folks able to attend.
When I learned that Bobbie's memorial would be the first weekend in October 2013 I discussed the trip with my wife, Jean, and we decided to stay in the area to attend both Sasquan's meeting in Spokane and Bobbie's memorial near Seattle. In planning the trip we realized that Yellowstone National Park was close enough to visit and neither of us had been. So we came up with the idea of driving up to Spokane from Phoenix, then post-meeting heading into Montana and dropping south into the park. We could drive through it in a day and stay south of there before returning to the Seattle area for the following weekend. Jean asked about driving along the coast to return home, so I planned that out as well.
We left home on Wed Sep 25 for an overnight stay north of Salt Lake City, UT. Things went well until we got close to Page, AZ, when we learned that US89 was closed due to a collapsed roadway! We got detoured east onto the Navajo Reservation until Kayenta (where we found out about the Navajo Codetalkers Museum) and then back to Page. We finally arrived at our hotel well after midnight and crashed immediately. Thu Sep 26 we departed and headed north along I-15, passing into Idaho and ultimately Montana, the first time for both of us there. Snow along the freeway in MT was quite beautiful, thankfully not on the road. We intersected with I-90 and headed northwest into northern ID and finally eastern WA for our next hotel east of Spokane. Coeur d'Alene, ID, was quite beautiful being located along a lake. We hope to get back there someday.
Fri Sep 27 we checked out of our hotel, shopped at Costco, grabbed lunch and headed into downtown Spokane to the Red Lion At The Park for our convention meeting stay. We checked in and met up with folks as they arrived: Sally, Bruce, Becky Thomson (Services DH) and later on Glenn. We had arranged for a CVB meeting to learn about the housing bureau system they were proposing we use for the convention. Bruce arrived in time to make the meeting with most of us along with Amy and Ashley from the CVB. They put the tech support person from Vancouver (BC) on the phone as we got our demo so we could ask questions. We were suitably impressed and decided to use the HB after doing a core dump with Glenn when he arrived that night. Sally and I also met with the sales rep for the DT about the proposed hotel contract after discussing some minor issues we wanted changed. We did dinner together and met up in the lounge after I fetched Glenn from the airport.
Sat Sep 28 we met for breakfast at the hotel, did our site visits with the Red Lion, DoubleTree and Davenport Hotels as well as the SCC. We did lunch nearby in the middle of the visits, then dinner at the Davenport which was quite good. We discussed lots of details until we ran out of steam and called it a night.
Sun Sep 29 we met again for breakfast, toured the SCC again, lunch nearby and met in one of the function rooms to hash out where we might put stuff as a starting point. Dealers Room could go here; Hugo Ceremony might go there. I took Glenn back to the airport and the rest met for dinner downtown before crashing early.
Mon Sep 30 we checked out and headed back to MT for an overnight stay just north of Yellowstone NP. The drive was gorgeous and we arrived in early evening. There were numerous tours staying there hoping to visit the park the next day. Unfortunately, the federal government was talking about sequester (shutting down non-essential services) and everyone was worried they wouldn't get in. That night we saw on the news that it was going to happen :(
Tue Oct 1 the US federal government closed all national parks and our plans to visit Yellowstone died with that announcement. Just in case I called the park phone number only to receive a recording that they were closed until further notice. Sucks! There was no way for us to drive south directly to our hotel stay in Jackson Hole, WY, so we checked the map and decided to go around. We backtracked into ID, headed south, then east and entered Wyoming from the southwest. North to JH and we arrived at our hotel. We would have cancelled, but they required 72 hours notice and I didn't feel like fighting it. We had a nice stay otherwise, other than the noise of water running down our wall periodically throughout the night; it turned out to be a water pipe that was scheduled to be rerouted that week.
Wed Oct 2 we left Jackson Hole for Boise, ID. We drove through southern Idaho and saw lots of potato farms. It was an uneventful drive and we checked into our hotel without incident.
Thu Oct 3 we checked out and headed towards Vancouver, WA for our next stay. We drove west through southern ID, entered Oregon from the east and stopped briefly in Portland to visit Powell's Bookstore (largest new/used bookstore in North America). Due to the pricing of hotels in that area I found that Vancouver had better rates. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant nearby that was pretty good. We spent the rest of the evening online catching up on email.
Fri Oct 4 we hit another Costco for shopping and arrived at our hotel near SeaTac Airport. We didn't need to be close to the airport, but debated whether to be near the memorial (east of Seattle in Gold Bar) or near where Sally and Becky lived. In the end we opted for the latter. Due to their schedules we didn't meet up with them; instead Jean and I met with a friend for an early dinner near Yelm, WA, whom we knew from online in the 80s. He had suffered a stroke, recovered slowly and was finally able to function independently again. We had wondered why we didn't hear much from him for several years, but were glad he was doing as well as he was. Later that evening we met with Gene east of Seattle. We did dessert at Denny's and chatted about his background & experience, how Sasquan's structure started out, my involvement, etc. We returned to our hotel.
Sat Oct 5 we visited spots nearby before heading to Gold Bar for the memorial. It was crowded! Over 150 people there. Since the house was near a state park along one road they had folks picking up and dropping off those walking more than about a quarter mile down the road. I dropped Jean off and went to park, taking photos along the way. We chatted with friends, met some new ones, met some relatives after the service, ate and drank before leaving about dark. The service was quite good with many getting up to talk about Bobbie and how she changed their lives for the best. I have seen very few services that were that well attended or with heartfelt presentations. It was a tribute to how loved Bobbie was. We returned to our hotel near SeaTac.
Sun Oct 6 we departed for the coastline and headed south into OR. We stopped occasionally for photos, ultimately staying overnight in Newport. We ate dinner at a nearby seafood restaurant which had good oyster stew.
Mon Oct 7 we left Newport for Eureka, CA. It was more of the same: photos, lunch, beautiful scenery, hotel, dinner. We did Cajun/Caribbean and it wasn't bad, although a bit expensive.
Tue Oct 8 we departed for Gilroy, CA. I had schedule to join Glenn and his wife for dinner with Bruce and his wife, but Jean wasn't feeling well. So I dropped her off at the hotel and headed to Glenn's home near Santa Cruz. It turned out that due to the delay it was just the three of us. We hit a restaurant nearby, then returned for an early night due to his work schedule. I got back to Gilroy and crashed.
Wed Oct 9 we left for Glendale, CA. Instead of Hwy 1 we did mostly US101. After checking into our hotel we headed to Burger Continental in Pasadena for dinner. A favorite spot with JPL engineers we were introduced to it years ago by a friend who used to work there. Despite the name they are mostly Mediterranean cuisine with belly dancing on the weekends. We returned to our hotel for email.
Thu Oct 10 we left for home and arrived in time to fetch the dog from boarding. Then came the tasks that happen after every trip: unload the car, clean up the messes that the cats leave for us each trip, and slowly get back into the groove.
Overall, the trip was a mixture of audiobooks, scenery, interesting meetings, frustration at the gov't, emotional release with friends, good food and memorable times.