Thus far, this blog has been mostly about my European vacation in May, and in the beginning, I only planned on doing this as a way for my parents to keep up with me while I traveled. However, since I do a lot of travel for work and I missed the outlet of blogging, I’ve decided to keep things going.
For those joining in medias res, my international travel has usually been around Labor Day, but because of a rare lull in my work travel in May, I was able to get away to Eurovision this year. Mainly, one conference that has typically been around my mid-May birthday moved to June this year, which opened up my obligations. Spoilers for next year, that conference is in June again, and I plan on being in Bulgaria for Eurovision 2027!
I coordinate conference travel as part of my job, and that basically means I make my own travel schedule. We do a lot of conferences, and while there is certainly some question of return on investment for such things, when your competitors are appearing, it makes sense to be there, too.
Q2, particularly June, is a glut of state, regional, and national conferences, and even with my vacation, I set a pretty crazy June travel schedule. All of these stops had specific business benefits for me being there, but I other than a two week stretch home in Chicago, with one Chicago-based conference, I am basically on the road every week in June.
Since returning home from vacation, I have been in Santa Barbara, St. Louis, and Chicago, which I am counting as trip because I stayed two nights in downtown Chicago for the conference. I am currently in flight to NYC before a conference in Cape Cod, and then I am off to Orlando for the final conference of the month. I was hoping to be home all of July, but the event of us opening a new office, means I will be in Miami for a week after the July 4th holiday. Racking up the points!
Since I am at the midpoint of this travel jag, I decided to give a quick burst of where I have been thus far:
Santa Barbara, CA
I have been to California several times, and I just haven’t jelled with much of the state. I identify more with the dark, gritty, transit oriented cities of the eastern United States, but occasionally, I can be surprised. Santa Barbara surprised me.
I arrived home from vacation on Monday, May 25th, and almost fewer than 16 hours later, I was on a plane. Not smart. I have had more issues with jet lag going west than I ever have going to Europe, and now, I was throwing more time zone change on my body. It wasn’t as bad as expected, but I did almost leave my checked bag at the airport. I was literally getting in the Uber and realized my mistake. Oops.
The “beach resort” we were staying at was a little threadbare (but obviously, this probably helped the conference rate), and the internet in the rooms was down, which made catching up on work very difficult. I put the resort in quotes because it was definitely a walk and a street crossing to get to the beach. It is interesting to note that I have never passed over both the Atlantic and the Pacific in a 24-hour period.
Santa Barbara is beautiful. Situated between the ocean and mountains, it had some very jaw dropping visuals, and with all the buildings being low rise, you had clear views of the mountains and ocean. Santa Barbara, itself, is pretty gorgeous, too. I walked into the “Funk Zone,” surely there is a better name for it, which is a redeveloped part of the downtown where lots of restaurants, breweries, and other quirky businesses have opened. The old downtown itself is pretty great, too. They have shut down vehicular traffic for a portion of it, and the bars and restaurants have moved out into the old sidewalks, new raised sidewalks have been build out of wood, and down the middle of the street are bike lanes. This is the type of walkable community I wish my home neighborhood would adopt, but Santa Barbara does not have the level of traffic that Andersonville has.
The one thing that Santa Barbara didn’t have was any sort of LGBTQIA bars and restaurants. There are certainly welcoming spaces, but I was surprised that there weren’t any sort of distinctly gay bars I could have gone to, which is something I try to do in most places I travel. The other thing Santa Barbara gave me was the smallest airport I have ever been to, with 5 gates. I was surprised to see United had a direct flight from Chicago. I would love to know how busy that is on a regular basis.
All in all, and it is rare for me to say this for most California stops, I would consider going to Santa Barbara on a non-work related trip.
St. Louis, MO
Almost the polar opposite of Santa Barbara is St. Louis. I have been to St. Louis before to see Sweeney Todd at The Muny, which is a very large outdoor theater venue that attracts a lot of mid tier Broadway stars to their summer series. The one thing that surprised me about St. Louis then was that it has a pretty good mass transit setup with trains that go under downtown.
The conference I was attending was in downtown St. Louis, which is a pretty dead city center, typical for midwestern cities. There are lots of business people and conferences in downtown, but once the work day is over, there is very little to do.
Dominating the downtown is the hulking St. Louis Gateway Arch, which is pretty gorgeous to behold, but you could never pay me to go up into it. I’m not terrified of heights anymore, but if I can feel any sort of motion in what I am standing on, then I just can’t take it.
I pretty much just stayed in my hotel and the conference hotel for the duration of this visit. I stayed in a Hilton next door to the conference hotel, and it was pretty interesting since it had been converted from a large bank structure. Other than having some great crab rangoon, which made up for the terrible order I had in Santa Barbara, I don’t really have much more to say about St. Louis.
The last time I was there, I did venture out to the gayborhood, and there are some good bars there. However, with this being a midweek conference and really just not feeling social, I didn’t venture out this trip.
Chicago, IL
The third conference I attended was in downtown Chicago, which is kind of a travel cheat for me. However, while I am only about 8 or 9 actual miles from downtown, with Chicago being a city of neighborhoods that generally have their own personality, it is almost like I am living in a different city from downtown.
While I probably could have stayed home and “commuted” to the conference, with early mornings and late nights, I booked two nights in the conference hotel, with a plan to act like a downtown resident for a couple days. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with me, with severe storms hitting the city both nights.
I did manage to get to the only gay bar in downtown Chicago, Second Story, for one cocktail before heading back to avoid the storms. I love Second Story, which is a tiny bar tucked into the second story (natch) above an Armenian restaurant. The downtown townies that inhabit it are generally pretty entertaining. I wish I could have spent more time there.
I love downtown Chicago, and I wish I could afford to live down there. The architecture alone is worth being there, and even with the dark shadow of a certain president’s tower looming over Michigan Ave., I still just love being there, and I should get down there more often.
That’s pretty much for the midway point of my travel binge. I am writing this on the plane to New York to kick off the second half of the month. I’m looking forward to a great weekend with friends, seeing a couple shows, and sitting through a timeshare presentation for a cheap weekend stay in NYC and 75,000 Hilton Points. Yes, I am a slut for points!
