serious about driving, training, eating (especially eating), and good talks; friends whether you like it or not

tuesday morning, so yes, i do get up early, as i am a morning person...early to breakfast, means i have some leisurely time-i'd rather be real early and have that time, than be rushed and all last-minute-y. we took off early enough in a tight little caravan of three cars to figure out a parking scenario in which we didn't have to walk a gazilion and one miles (while i love the old:I'M GONNA BE by the proclaimers, by no means did i have any desire to "walk 500 miles"). so we left the 'seasoned trainers' and randi, angelica and i set off to retrieve the cars and drive around to a central parking location. once we got there, we had to figure out the parking meter app, and accidentally put in the rental car number instead of the license plate # the first hour...but then changed it in the app-hopefully no one came by to scan the cars in the first hour...yikes. we meandered around the campus like we were on AMAZING RACE, and once we found our assigned peeps, we helped them settle in for the morning session.

i was having to be super time-conscious to "feed-the-meter" to add time for our by-the-hour parking app. so i got to hang with joyce for our trainings this round, and while it deviated from our "normal" trainings" (although, what really is normal? thank you very much), there is always something to be learned! we battled the technical difficulties (with the grace of a high-functioning drunk panda bear)...we plugged the podium power in. it went smoothly, but lets be clear, these teachers were HARD-CORE-SERIOUS about their lunch-time...i mean, olympic time-keeper-serious! (but i am too), which led to our NASA-style countdown timer on day 2. i'm sure in her heart of hearts, joyce wanted to stay one extra day and give it a try to see if she could shave off another two minutes, but since our flights had already been booked...ok, maybe not..but back to that first session. once we finished, we channeled our dale earnhardt jr...jeff gordon...richard petty-you pick...and hoofed it over to the other campus. a little rushed, but safe, and smooth. once again, we took our chances to find vip parking...and to our pleasure, they provided parking passes! the parking gods were watching out for us. fortunately we retained our same facilitator for all of the sessions-she was a gem. not even being sarcastic, we could be friends! end day one session two.

driving back to the hotel had to happen, so we knew the hotel was on zuni street...we may have been too..tired (better than lazy, right?) to look up the exact address, so for whatever god-forsaken reason, when you just put in the street name with no address, the gps map takes you wherever it wants to on that street...we had one other car following us, and we certainly took the scenic route because gps maps gonna take you for a ride! eventually we did opt to put the address in and got rerouted to the hotel to drop a passenger and consolidate vehicles. during the scenic route, one of the ladies in the car behind us texted. and alicia asked, "why is she texting us?" my response, "because she didn't want to tap it out in morse-code with the lights." that may have been the turning point of appreciation for my humor with alicia. we share a delicate affinity for sarcastic humor. actually, i prefer to view it as clever, well-timed wit...anyoo, we arrived at rio grande for dinner and 3 from our group were already there, with a table, and they had already ordered apps and requested from our magnanimous leader a special dinner-approval for intentional bonding. smile. it was delicious, and it was especially nice to be able to laugh and get to know the crew a bit.

drove past rei, and certainly wished i could go in! wished i had limitless funds to purchase hiking, climbing, etc. gear and had the time to go out to play!! such a tease!

toward the end of dinner, i received a call from one of my friends from dallas who needed to talk-i could tell something was up on the home-front, so it was an important conversation. #alwaysthereforfriends

when everyone finished, we made our way back to our hotel and i had an opportunity to hang out with three other trainers in the breezeway outside of the rain-it was quality. taking opportunities to get to know everyone better, because who knows when we see each other again. i loved getting to have a little heart-to-heart with julie. you have to understand that we are the same person. ok...not really, but she was julie robinson first at istation; now she is julie k, and i'm the new julie r...which i'm sure is confusing as all get-out to some...but in all seriousness, it's a little comical how much we actually do have in common. she's one i really did want to get to know better, because we were on the light blue team together (remember this); we didn't really get enough time to talk at the conference, but i was really impressed by her knowledge, so (unbeknownst to her...poor, unsuspecting soul) i decided then and there that as sure as the sun rises in the east earth rotates in such a manner as to create the semblance of the sun rising in the east...we were going to be friends.

at some point while we were chatting, julie had to go up to their room to use the restroom, and she came back visibly shaken. (goosebumps and all). she asked if we'd gone up or not. nope. hadn't moved an inch. so when she told us her story, it was like a continuation of the weirdness that had transpired in brian's room. she said she was in the bathroom and heard the distinct sound of the front door opening and closing. she didn't think too much, but started to call out for sabrina, thinking she'd come back up for something...she was the only one with the key-card. no one answered, she repeated, "sabi?" and she said she heard an audible "hi, hi" in a soft, raspy voice...but when she walked out-nothing. ew...got goosebumps when she told us, before she rushed out of the room, she turned around, and said in no uncertain terms, "in the name of Jesus, i command you to leave!" then she rushed down to where we were and asked if we'd been up there- obviously creeped out, because wouldn't you be? great. i signed up for the haunted training trip. i knew before we left that it was not going to be normal, but this? a little warning next time, peeps #notevenhalloweenyet ...but that led into a pretty deep conversation that diverged and branched off into two conversations before resuming into a single flow of conversation again. it really was enlightening, and i cherish that time...priceless.

we wandered off to bed, so that we could wake up the next morning for the next round of sessions. and there were no strange paranormalities to speak of when we woke up the next morning...thankfully so!

julie