Wednesday. My morning started at five thirty. Way too early for me, I did not want to get up at all. But I left myself only enough time to jump out of bed, quickly hit the shower, get dressed and get out the door with Paul to get on the road. Our goal time was to leave by six and we were in the truck driving by five after (and it wasn’t me that we were waiting on.) In reality we could have been as late as seven and still been early and even if we had left at eight we might have made the entire event. But with such a long drive we did not want to take any risks and waste the day.
We arrived in Houston so early, around nine thirty. We parked and walked around for a while trying to figure out how to get into the Toyota Center. It turns out that you have to go into the parking garage, go up three floors then the only entrance to the Toyota Center is by way of a sky way that takes you there. Not a hard system, if you know about it. But there isn’t anything, anywhere that tells you about this. Even talking to staff at the Toyota Center does not get you that information. It was so confusing and wasted so much time. We got a lot of walking in today.
Once we figured out how to get in, we still had more than an hour to kill. And the place was locked up. It was only ten. We were directed several blocks away to the Hilton Houston where there was a Starbucks in the farthest point of the hotel. My feet were hurting from all of the walking just getting the day started.
We got coffee and hung out for an hour in the Hilton. At least it gave me time to catch up on MangoLassi, emails, office chat, etc.
We were able to get into the event just after eleven. Registration was not officially until eleven thirty, but there was someone there and we were the first two in to the event. It was good that we were early, we were able to have several good conversations before most people arrived.
The event went pretty well and turned out to be well worth the trip. But it was certainly a very long day. We left in the late afternoon. Got back to the truck and immediately set out for Dallas to get as far ahead of the rush hour traffic as possible. We were right on the front wave of it and it is so much worse than what we get in Dallas.
Our drive back to Dallas was fine. I grabbed some Taco Bell on the way up.
We got back between eight and nine. We were pretty tired. Paul pretty much went straight to bed. I went to be office and worked for a while, an entire day out of the office is pretty much impossible for me. Although I did work from my cell phone for the entire day and that actually proved to be quite effective. It is amazing how much I am able to get done effectively that way when I have to.
Tomorrow morning I don’t have a rush, but I do have a local event that Paul and I are attending around none that I have to prepare for.