Up by 3:30am to get dressed and ready for my 6am flight to Atlanta made for a long day. If I had it to do over again, I would have traveled the day before to get myself settled into my hotel with time to collect myself. Although, had I done that, I wouldn’t have met the nice gal I sat next to during my flight, making the flight go by in a flash. She also knew the Atlanta airport well and walked me straight to the taxi line once we landed. I arrived at my hotel, pleased to be in the same location as the conference I’d be attending. Who knew the hotel was just about as big as the state of Rhode Island? Once I dropped my bags I started the long walk to the conference building…yes, three buildings away and quite a bit of a hike. The conference was in full swing, the Keynote Speaker had just finished, having begun his speech at 9am!! I was bummed to have missed him but there was no time for feeling sorry for that, there were educational sessions to attend, vendors to check out and an enormous space to try and navigate. The national conference is for recreation and parks departments and holy cow do people come out in droves. The vendors showed off cool playground equipment, lighting options, software, bike racks and just about everything else. You might wonder, what the heck kind of educational sessions could their be for recreation? I jumped into several, How to write better surveys, Alternative Recreation: Engaging the forgotten demographic, How empowered teams live healthy culture, then was off to speed networking. I was exhausted and feeling a bit overwhelmed but with a party at the Atalanta Aquarium invite, I rallied and kept going. The aquarium was enormous and packed with 8000 people…. Yes, 8000 people, all from our conference. There was food, drinks and live music on one floor with a DJ on another. I met up with a few friends and wandered around looking at the sea life while trying to stay awake. I tapped out fairly early, leaving the party but sensory overload kicking in with the crowd and loud music. I jumped on one of the shuttles, happy to be heading back and looking forward to the quiet of my hotel room. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I was on the wrong shuttle, headed to an entirely different hotel, yikes! I quickly told the bus driver that I was in the wrong spot and thankful to hear her say I wasn’t to worry, she’d bring me to my hotel. I was so thankful for her kindness, by that point I’m not sure I could have handled figuring out the shuttle switch. Once I arrived back to my hotel I was beyond tired, happy this little fish was able to navigate this big pond, ready to rest up for another day of city life.
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