Observations from the road

I just got back from a 5-day trip on the East Coast, filling in for our sales guy on some distributor visits. I hit Baltimore, Atlanta, and Orlando in roughly 3 days, bookended by 2 full flying days. Here are some observations, in no particular order:

I met a lot of nice people:
I don't know what it was, but it just seemed that everyone I met were really great people. I'm not talking about my sales contacts (who are all great) but rather the incidental people you meet along the way. Notables were the lovely woman on the Atlanta airport tram, Mark and Mike from the Downtown Disney magic shop, the spunky girl who sat next to me flying from Seattle to Atlanta who I dubbed a "pharmaceutical flyer", the owner of Original Georgio's Pizzaria in Baltimore, and the Northwest Flight Attendant from Memphis to Seattle. Travelling alone really sucks and nice people really make all the difference.

Orlando is cheaper than Baltimore:
Go figure. My hotel in Baltimore was $137 per nigt and my car rental (ended up) over $100 per night. In Orlando, I stayed at a frickin RESORT hotel right outside Disney and paid $87 per night and $50 per day (ended up) for car rental. Guess which was nicer? The Holiday Inn in Baltimore smelled like wet feet. In Orlando, I was overlooking the pool. :)

Carrying a bag of toys gets you noticed:
I had too much stuff for my luggage leaving Baltimore so I had to carry a plastic (see-through) bag of my toy samples. These consisted of sererate polybagged Superman figures. People all over the Atlanta airport were stopping me and asking what was in the bag. I passed out a dozen or so samples. In fact, my flight from Atlanta to Orlando was sold out and since I booked late, I didn't have a seat. The reservations clerk (a very nice woman) was asking me about the bag and said that her son likes to play a game where you build pirate ships out of styrene cards. I told her that was my company's game and that if he emailed me, I'd hook him up with some free stuff. She was thrilled and said "...let me get you a seat on that plane...". She gave me an aisle seat, no less! (Note: I suspect someone got bumped so my plan to become evil is coming along nicely.)

Travelling Salesmen don't sleep:
Wednesday and Friday morning, I had to get up at 3am to make flights. Both times included car rental drop offs which takes at least an hour and a half. Tuesday night I got (literally) an hour and a half of sleep. I hope I wasn't too big of an idiot at my lone Atlanta stop because I sure was tired.

Northwest Airlines is starting to suck:
Due to their impending bankruptcy, they have discontinued snack service (you have to buy them now), no longer have pillows or blankets, and had one counter person covering 8 windows in Orlando. It was insane. I better use my miles while I can.

What do you do with an armadillo when you catch it?
I watched 3 stupid rednecks chasing an armadillo (which I had never seen in the wild before now) through the resort while I was having dinner on Thursday night. What the hell were they going to do with it? Maybe I don't want to know.

The East Coast and the West Coast "feel" different:
I can't describe it, but you can sure tell the difference between the East Coast and West Coast. Orlando was beautiful. I really enjoyed driving around there. I doubt I'd want to live there, but I sure want to go back soon.