Huntsville, AL and a Whole Lotta Hashtags!

The week before last I was in Huntsville, Alabama attending the Social Media Symposium on Travel and Tourism, aka #SOMET13US.  It's the 3rd year I've been to this conference and it's so nice to have a group of folks that I know to hang out with.

I road-tripped down with my friend Laura from Kenosha, WI and Alyssa from the outer Chicago suburbs, and we got to Huntsville on Tuesday.  The hotel was super nice (a Westin, I wanted to take up residence in the shower, heaven) and we got to enjoy the evening event for early arrivals, a "Tweet Up Tap Room Takeover" at a local brewery with food provided by two food trucks.  The watermelon wheat beer was incredible and I have a grilled "cheese"cake sandwich-2 slices of buttered poundcake with a slice of cheesecake in between.  It was just as insanely good as it sounds.

The next morning I had a fabulous run with my friend Jessie from Arkansas and then a breakfast to write home about:

Chocolate chip banana pancakes with homemade whipped cream, 2 fried eggs and a cheesy hashbrown casserole.  I didn't eat again until dinner, haha!  Freaking outstanding diner food.  Thank goodness this place doesn't exist where I live, I'd eat there too much!

We also shopped a bit in the outdoor mall attached to the hotel until the conference started at noon.  There were educational sessions all afternoon and then a welcome reception at the Space and Rocket Center!

We ate under the Saturn V rocket and then were set loose to explore.  Here's a peek at Space Camp (which they have for grown-ups, if you missed your chance as a kind like I did):

The Space and Rocket Center had a DaVinci exhibit going on, where they actually built the devices that DaVinci sketched, like his precursor to modern helicopters:

The next day was a full day of educational sessions, then another reception at a very cool outdoor venue that evening.  Friday morning I had a phenomenal run in the workout room, then more educational sessions.  We left around lunchtime and road-tripped back to Cape, where Laura and Alyssa dropped me off and headed on their way north!  Ryan had done all the grocery shopping and had dinner ready, which was a really nice welcome home.  I spent the weekend doing laundry, getting in some good quality time with Ryan and my family and loving on my dogs.  Now I'm working to take all of the knowledge I collected and apply it to the social media I manage at work.

Huntsville seemed like a really fun place, and its only 5.5 hours from Cape...good to know if Ryan and I can ever get away for a weekend trip!

Everything has been pretty low-key since that trip, so nothing exciting to report other than everyday things!  What have you been up to lately?   Have you gone anywhere fun for work?