GCLS 2014 – Portland, OR

Well, it’s that time of year again.

Time for what I call “The Annual Lesbian Hug Fest” – also known as the Golden Crown Literary Society Annual Conference.

This is the one event I look forward to each year.  It serves as my vacation.  Each year the conference is held in a different part of the country so I get to travel, see the US, and experience new things.

This year, we are in Portland, Oregon.  It’s my first time in the PNW.  Well, that’s not really true.  I was in Seattle for about 24 hours once for a different conference.  I flew in.  I went to do my presentation at the conference.  I slept on the chair in a friend’s hotel room.  I left at the buttcrack of dawn the next day.  Not too exciting.

This year, I drove from Chicago to Portland with a friend.  We decided to give ourselves extra time since I’m not working and don’t have to worry about having enough days off and stuff like that.  So, we took our time, stopped when we wanted to stop, took detours for sight seeing.  It was a lot of fun!

I prefer driving whenever possible.  I live in a large, beautiful country and I’d like to see and experience as much of it as I can in my lifetime.  Up until this trip, I’d never driven through this part of the country.  Really, once we crossed the western border of Nebraska, it was all brand new for me.

I mean, really, you don’t get to see stuff like this from a plane:

The official start to the conference is on Wednesday evening at the Meet and Greet.  But, as a member of the board of directors, some of us are here early to have meetings and do more preparation for the week ahead.  There’s still so much to do.  I guess that’s why I was up at 6am this morning (before my alarm) and am now waiting for others to wake up so that I can get what I need from them in order to do what I need to do.  🙂

It’s going to be a great conference!  Hopefully I’ll be able to blog/update/post something every day.