I'm v. tired, but I'm having a lovely time in the small town of Manning, where I have come for a tourism conference. No, I am not a tourism coordinator, but I'm now on the board for the county economic development group, and someone from the board needed to go to this conference. It's three hours from home, so I had to wake up early this morning (in a thunderstorm! how unusual, since we've been in a drought!) to drive over here. I made it two minutes before the opening speaker, which was just right, and all in all it's been a good event. I've learned more about road signage and liquor laws than I thought I needed to know, but I also got to go see the Templeton Rye distillery, which is a few miles away. They have spent tens of millions of dollars on that facility, which I find fascinating, and they glossed over the whole controversy of when Templeton was actually being produced in Indiana. But it was still a fun tour and I enjoyed my tasting, and I was lured into buying a sweatshirt, so it was all good.
Then I v. quickly checked into my hotel and had dinner at the conference center - I am the only gluten free person in attendance, which means the catering ladies were looking out for me specifically, and tonight they made me a massive amount of gluten free pasta to go with the sauce and the salmon, which I appreciated. This area is very heavily German Catholic, and so after dinner, we were 'encouraged' to play a couple of German games (nailing a nail into a stump, and holding a beer stein as long as possible). I mostly hung out and talked to some people who knew my mom from my mom's involvement in tourism years ago, as well as some other people who were pretty entertaining.
And now, after having my last drink in the lobby (probably in direct violation of the liquor laws we learned about today), I need to sleep - goodnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment