Education Vacation

     My day job requires me to complete 20 hours of professional continuing education each year. Since I have to go anyway, I try to pick seminars in locations that are fun to visit. We are just back from a combination of education and vacation on the East Coast. The convention center was very nice. So nice, in fact, that I felt a little out of place there. This place was so rich that there was a vending machine in the lobby with $350 Bose Headphones for sale. Where I come from, vending machines are for crackers.
    Here is a view across the hotel atrium and out to the yacht club on the river. The atrium was set up like a little town with shops and restaurants in little buildings like the one you see on the lower right.

    This rocky stream courses through the atrium.

Outdoors, a wild Mallard Duck stops briefly at the hotel's  landscaped waterfall before flying on downriver.

    In front of the hotel, the limo drivers prepare for a busy day.

                           

     One morning we discovered a dirt road near our hotel that curved around a bend in the river. We were quite close to the convention center, restaurants, and shopping, and still we saw Mallard ducks with their babies, diving ducks, Canada Geese, and a Red-winged Blackbird. On the ground we saw deer tracks. Honey Bunny walked out there with me the following night so that I could get this shot, otherwise I would not have felt comfortable there alone. The convention center is on the far right. The purple lights are from the sixteenth floor night club.

                             

    Here are two more photos of the river. The bridge you see in the distance is a drawbridge. I always get the creeps driving over those. It is  1 and 1/4 miles long and carries twelve lanes of traffic. There is a concrete barrier to protect pedestrians who have their own lane. We saw people jogging there, but were told that noise from the traffic is deafening.

                        

                            

    This is part of a 70 foot sculpture that depicts a giant trying to free himself from the sand.

    That's okay. I don't want to get on your dumb old boat anyway!

                    

    The seminar we attended offered full time learning. Night classes, lunch-and-learns, and wet labs were all a part of the package. One morning I took advantage of the free continental breakfast in the exhibit hall, only to be bombarded by big screen TVs with advertisements from some of the vendors. None of this surprised me until I saw these signs paired together. I then had to wonder if the "full time learning" thing was getting a bit out of hand.

              

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Deserted Fishing Cabin