On The Move

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Colleen Lerro

I’ve been neglecting my blog for far too long, which usually means I’ve been travelling a lot. And, that I have been. Since the beginning of May I’ve been in Orlando, Chicago and Minneapolis, and I also hosted my parents for one of the weekends I was staying in town. My whirlwind of travel looks like it will continue throughout the summer and into the fall with trips already planned to Hoboken/NYC, St. Louis, Boston, Canada, Syracuse, Annapolis, Providence, the Outer Banks, NYC (again), Connecticut and Lake Placid. It’s going to be a busy few months!

The Canada trip is a recent addition. I decided a few weeks ago to try and take advantage of the speed gains I’d seen throughout the April 5ks and take a shot at qualifying for the Boston Marathon. I still plan to go for this at the Marine Corps Marathon in October, but that race is too late to qualify for Boston in 2013. I signed up for a small race called the Niagara Marathon that starts in Niagara on the Lakes and runs along a path by the Niagara River towards the Falls on the Canadian side. It’s a bit quicker than I would have liked, but was the only one I could fit into my busy schedule. I ramped up my mileage pretty quickly and have seen this hurt my pace a little, but am hoping all the miles I put in will be enough to carry me to the finish line in under 3:35 at the end of June!

The Orlando trip that kicked things off was for a work conference. It was my first work trip with the new job and it went pretty well. It was a small conference, so it was good to get some experience at this before our big convention in Boston this June. I did things like work in the media room, attend sessions and write blog posts. If you have any interest in biotech, you can check them out on my company’s blog.

One of my favorite things about work trips is getting to stay in nice hotels. One of the coolest I’ve been to is the W in NYC. For the Orlando conference, I stayed in a Gaylord Resort. I’ve been to the restaurants and conference areas at Gaylord hotels in D.C. and Nashville, but this was my first time staying at one. Unfortunately all of our meals were already set for us so I didn’t get to try out any of the restaurants, but most of their catering was pretty good. Their cheesecake was particularly great, and I think I ate more desserts in a week than I usually do in a year! Good thing for me, their fitness center was also superb. It was by far one of the nicest hotel fitness centers I’ve seen.

They had a great pool area with a section for adults who wanted some peace and quiet with their sun and a more fun-filled area with water slides. I unfortunately didn’t fit in a visit to the pool, but it was nice to look at when I’d sneak outside to warm up during the day. The conference, also held in the convention center of the Gaylord, was absolutely freezing! The rooms on the hotel side, fortunately, were much more comfortable. I had a spacious room with comfy beds and a nice, clean and big bathroom. Check out some pics below!

100,000 Miles… Well, Almost

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Colleen Lerro

Lil Blue before I abandoned her in the Wilkes Barre Pep Boys parking lot

On New Years Eve, my boyfriend and I set off to make the drive from D.C. To Syracuse in my little blue Saturn – affectionately known as lil blue. I’ve been driving lil blue since just before my senior year of high school so she’s been a lot of places with me. After high school lil blue traveled with me to all 3 colleges I attended, graduate school and my first job.

We had just made the same trip a few days earlier for Christmas, and I’d been bragging to anyone who would listen that week that I was about to hit 100,000 miles. Apparently that’s not a big milestone anymore, and most people hit it well before ten years. Regardless, I was pretty excited.

I took the first shift at the wheel on the way to our New Year’s party, and Pennsylvania got back at me for all the crap I’ve talked about how awful it is to drive through over the years. Just outside of Lebanon on 81 – the middle of nowhere – I heard a loud bang and the car started to rumble. This set off a series of “is this really happening” events making it quite an adventure to get home. My front tire had literally exploded, blowing off the front quarter panel of the car and damaging the horn and headlight too.

I navigated to the shoulder and after calming down gave AAA a call. I’ve always been impressed by their customer service, but they didn’t seem too enthused about helping this time. “You know it’s NYE so you’re probably out of luck,” was the response I got along with a list of Pennsylvania car repair shops and dealerships I could have just as easily pulled off google. It was also going to take over an hour to get a tow truck to us.

“Well, at least things can’t get any worse,” I said. I called shop after shop while sitting on the side of the road as cars and trucks whizzed passed us just a foot away. I kept getting the same answer – no one could help me, at least not until Monday. At the tow truck driver’s recommendation we decided to head 90 miles north to a Pep Boys in Wilkes Barre – at least we’d be going in the right direction.

“Well, at least things can’t get any worse,” I said again as we hopped into the tow truck with the driver and his wife. They were going to use our misfortune to drive up to Scranton for a fancy New Year’s dinner. If you know anything about Scranton, you’ll understand why I had a tough time not laughing at this.

At the Pep Boys I figured we were about to be back on our way to the party with a new tire in no time. The mechanic laughed when he saw the car and said there was no way he could put a new tire on until I had body work done. Of course no body shops would be open until Monday.

Determined to still make the party we asked how close we were to the Scranton airport – yes, it does exist. After turning down an offer from a slightly sketchy guy who was willing to bring just me to the airport, (with the way my luck was going, I really didn’t want to get axe-murdered that night!) Ian found a cab company to come pick us up. Our cab driver Junior was quite the character. He hated all other drivers, felt bad about how much he had to charge us and really liked the Kia gerbils commercials. The Avis rental car workers were also happy with our misfortune since they said they normally don’t get to talk to too many people there. They set us up with a Ford Fusion and we were finally back on our way to Syracuse. We missed dinner, but caught up with everyone for drinks at the hotel and had an awesome night out making it totally worth the crazy adventure it took to get there.

After some thought I decided it wasn’t worth repairing the car, and it was time to let lil blue go. The final odometer reading: 99,875 miles. I didn’t get my 100,000 miles, but I guess that’s life. You don’t always end up where you plan to, but hopefully you had some good times and fun adventures along the way to give you some great stories.

Traveling

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Colleen Lerro

I’ve been neglecting my blog while I put to the test just how much I like to travel. I went on five trips in November, three by plane, one by bus and one by car, so it was a busy month to say the least.

Twins Game - September 2010

I took advantage of some rewards flights to book a pair of long weekends to Minneapolis where my boyfriend lives. Minneapolis isn’t anything like I’d imagined. My vision came mostly from Marshall’s descriptions of Minnesota on How I Met Your Mother. It’s a very cool, fun city, however I enjoy it a lot more when it’s not cold there! On my trips there, we’ve caught a couple Twins games; toured the Mall of America, including the aquarium inside of the mall; and checked out restaurants in different parts of town. Some of my favorites are The Nook, Psycho Suzi’s and Stella’s.

In between Minneapolis trips, I made it up to Hoboken for the first time to see my brother’s and his girlfriend’s new

NYC Skyline

place, and of course we made it into NYC also. Hoboken is small, but packed with people, restaurants/bars, shops and energy. There is nothing like New York pizza and bagels and we definitely ate well that weekend. My favorite pizza stops were Lombardi’s Pizzeria in NYC and Johnny Pepperoni in Hoboken.

For Thanksgiving I made the drive up to Syracuse. It’s always nice to go back home for a visit, but was especially nice given that the usual winter temps hadn’t set in yet, and we enjoyed 50s and even 60s with no snow the entire time I was home! My ride home was pretty tough, taking 2 and a half hours longer than usual while it rained the entire time, but my parents were waiting at one of our usual restaurant spots and had food and drink ready and waiting for me when I finally arrived. Thanksgiving was filled with some great food. My cousin cooked our turkey this year and did an amazing job, and my Mom made one of my favorites, a peanut butter pie!

Finally, I ended the month with a trip to Tampa for both work and fun. I got the chance to speak on a panel about mobile health at the National Conference of State Legislatures Fall Forum. I shared findings from a recent study on health technology that my company did. It was a really interesting experience, and I’m definitely intrigued by how this topic will affect our lives in the coming years. After the conference I headed over to nearby St. Pete to visit my grandparents. They spend the winters there and I head down every year to visit. It’s always a treat to be taken out to eat, go to the movies and lend my tech expertise. This year was pretty easy – I helped with a Netlix issue and added a bunch of pictures to their digital photo frame.

It was a fun month, and I do still love to travel and see new places, but I have to say I’m happy to be back home and staying put…well, at least for a few weeks.