Last week proved to be one of the busier traveling weeks I have experienced. This last Sunday afternoon was the most tired and worn down I have felt in a long time.

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't do it any differently.

The heavy travel week started out with a six day business trip to the Seattle area. A co-worker of mine and I were sent there to help run a rewards event for a casino's frequent customers and "high rollers." Of the two business trips I have been on, this by far took the cake as my favorite. The casino resort was located on an island about a thirty minute ferry ride away from downtown Seattle. We were housed in their resort lodge with a rear balcony view from our rooms of a beautiful lake and scenery. Though we spent the night in a remarkably relaxing hotel area, the week definitely kept us on our toes.

After arriving on a Saturday night, we started work on Sunday morning, helping set up beginning at six that morning and not completely getting off helping clients with the event until almost midnight. The proceeding days had a similar feel, most days starting around 9AM and ending between 9PM and midnight, with a few short breaks in between. However, on the Tuesday morning we were there, we were given the opportunity to explore downtown Seattle and be "touristy" for a bit. We did about as much as one could do in Seattle in just a few short hours with most of that time being spent in Pike Place Market. There we visited the Pike Place Fish Market and saw them throw a huge fish over a random woman's head. We also ventured down to the world's first Starbucks and even heard street performers playing their rendition of The Doors' "Love Me Two Times" using only an acoustic guitar and accordion.

Yes, an accordion.

Lalo and I riding the ferry to downtown Seattle

After the market we made our way to the city's monerail and rode it down to the Space Needle. If you're going to be touristy in Seattle, it wouldn't be right for us not to go to the Space Needle. As it turned out, there was a revolving restaurant at the top that we decided would be a great place to grab a bite. Our waiter did profile us a bit. After ordering a pork sandwich, the waiter proceeded to ask me "You do know that it's not a southern style pork sandwich right?" Sure I knew, I was capable of reading the menu description, however Lalo suggested that my accent may have given me away.

We returned to Chicago on a Thursday night and I ventured to work the next morning. After losing two hours due to the time zone difference, waking up to go to work hurt a bit. Immediately after work, I took my freshly re-packed bag and headed straight to Midway airport to catch a flight to Nashville. Wasn't even in the city of Chicago for quite 24 hours.

My parents volunteered to pick me up from Nashville and swung through Bowling Green on the way to pick up Megan to meet Nanny and Grandaddy (grandparents on my Dad's side) for dinner. After landing in BNA and sitting on the plane taxi for an extra half hour, we finally were able to eat a little after 8:30. It was great to see my grandparents for the first time in several months and I did everything I could to stay awake for the whole visit and adjust to figuring out exactly which city I was in that particular night.

The rest of the weekend was fairly relaxing. I slept in until 11:30 Saturday morning (which has to be documented as some sort of personal record for me) and spent the day chilaxing with Megan and her roommate Chelsea. One of the great things about visiting Megan is that because of all the traveling and work things I go through before seeing her, she's always great about letting me just chill and relax. I think I slept about as much (if not more) than I was awake when I was with her but she never complained once.

So the next three weeks keeps me here in Chicago. Which makes sense being that I do live here and all. All that lies ahead of me (that I know of) is the purchase of a new vacuum and a grueling 103 flight (2,109 step) race up to the top of the Sears (*cough* Willis *cough*) Tower. With being sick one week and traveling the next, I only have roughly ten days  to train for a stair climbing race.

It's not going to be pretty.