Where’s Gatorland again?

I have a work meeting next week in Orlando, FL. It’s kinda ironic because it’s a meeting relating to the wildfire emergency rehab support folks, and the Forest Service does very little such work in the southeast. The emergency rehab is mostly a need where mountain slopes exist (leading to increased runoff). However, we have regional coordinators in the SE and NE that contribute to this group. I’m an invited speaker to their meetings every year and in the few years I’ve been doing this, I’ve attended this meeting in Albuquerque, Salt Lake, San Diego, Spokane, and Denver (respectively, by year). This year, they’re meeting in Orlando so I get to enjoy some warm weather in the middle of the winter!

I speak on Thursday morning at 8am, but there are two speakers on Wednesday I’d like to hear, so I’m flying out on Tuesday. I extended the trip on the back end, too, so I could bring Jen along. She and I are both going out there sans children and look forward to a little bit of relaxation out there. Actually, the entire trip will be relaxing because I enjoy presenting to these folks — mostly because they are not remote sensing or GIS types and still think whatever I do is magic and amazing. So this should be a good trip.

Our hotel is directly across the street from Universal Studios, but it costs $79/day to visit the park! No thanks. Jen and I will visit the Orlando Temple on Wednesday night, meaning we’ve been to the temple every month since September (5 straight months!). Okay, one of those months (December) was just attending a sealing…

We’re getting rain here in Salt Lake and it is SO GREAT to get a storm to clear out the incredible inversion we’ve had for two weeks. All the rain may have been acid rain, but it’s still the catalyst for clear air. Yahoo! This picture shows some of the smog hanging around in the valley during the current inversion, but it got MUCH worse than this later in the week.

By the way, I went to the gym three times this week and played basketball this morning. I can only play if I’m hopped up on ibuprofen (for my back) and wear a knee brace (so I can actually use my left leg the next few days). I’m definitely getting old!