Oskaloosa Rotary

The Conference Begins in Earnest

Today was the first full day of conferencing. Robin, Micah and I got up in the morning and headed for the Convention Center. When we got on the shuttle we met all kinds of people from all over the world. Our first encounter was with two gentlemen from Nigeria. They were very friendly and fell in love with Micah. I sat next to a gentleman from Canada who was at his 6th convention. He is in charge of his district's Youth Exchange program and got me up to speed on it. I have his card and he is willing to help us in anyway we might need it.

We went to the 2nd Plenary session and listened to Dr. Tadataka Yamada encourage Rotary to match the Gates Foundation donation of $100 million. He serves as President of Global Health Program for the Gates Foundation. He displayed true passion in erradicating Polio.

Next we listened to David Forward give a historical account of Rotary. He recently has written a book on the the first 100 years of Rotary. He talked about the history of Rotary and how it has been made by lesser known men and women and not the people we necessarily usually associate with Rotary. In fact, he metioned that two of the four original members dropped out within the first two years.

Micah enjoyed this session as well. The founder of the Charicter Counts movement spoke. Micah loves the program at his school and was excited to listen to the founder. He encouraged Rotary to continue to live out the Four Way Test.

Next we broke off into break out sessions. I visited a program titled "Effective Club Administration with the Club Leadership Plan." It was encouraging and something I would like to visit with our club. It would really help direct us for the next 3 to 5 years. Robin and Micah visited a program titled "Adoption Awareness." This program encouraged us to work with local adoption agencies to create opportunities for them to meet potential adoptees in a non-threatening atmosphere.

Once we finished conventioning for the day we headed back and used the public transit system to get us to Hollywood. This portion of the visit can be summed up as follows: "Thank God for conservative Iowa." We experienced a whole lot of freaks.

Tomorrow we head for the beach!

Off to LA!

Woke up in AZ to a beautiful morning. We left at about 9:00 am and headed to LA. This leg of the trip was a fantastic drive. Lots of great scenery. 

You cant really discribe LA traffic. It started a good 75 miles from LA proper with 8 lanes of traffic. It was mid day on a Sunday and was just packed with cars. I was driving 75 and it was like I was standing still. I truly miss Iowa traffic.

Seems like every one we meet today is worried about Iowa and the floods. So the emergency is felt nationwide. 

Got to the LA convention center at 4:00 pm. We parked right next to the Convention Center. Today the Lakers were playing in Game 5 of the NCAA Championships so we had to pay event-price parking. OUCH! As soon as we stepped in the door we were greeted by a gentleman from a MN rotary club. He was very helpful and pointed us to where we needed to go.

We walked into the House of Friendship and ran into Don Goering of the Ames club. We attended most of the opening Plenary session and witnessed the Parade of Flags, which was quite moving. Ray Klingensmith was the MC. He is from the Kirksville MO club and came and spoke at our club a few months ago. We also met the president and his family and he gave the opening keynote.

Looking forward to Monday sessions.

"Grand" day in AZ.

Today we left New Mexico and drove a short day (4.5 hours) to Flagstaff AZ. There, we visited with a friend who has lived in there for the last 10+ years. As a result, he is very familiar with the Grand Canyon. We ate dinner 5000' above the Colorado river on a small rock out cropping. IT WAS AMAZING!

Exitement on this leg consisted of our power inverter for our phones and computers caught on fire and caused a lot of smelly smoke and panic in the van. Robin was quick to open a window and unplug it so major damage was avoided.

  The down side to the Route 66 trip is the tourist traps. It is crazy how many road side stands offer "authentic" indian jewelry or "real" petrified wood. We stopped at a few stands to browse. Most of it is a rip-off.

LA tomorrow!

Getting a morning fuel up.

After a perfect start to the perfect day (StarBucks), we made our way through Texas (my son’s favorite state) and New Mexico. This was my first time to the state of New Mexico so I can now say that I have physically been in every state west of the Mississippi.

I visited with the clerk at StarBucks. She asked where I was going. I told her the International Rotary Convention. She said she had heard of Rotary but didn't know the had conventions. She thought maybe Rotary was small. She was surprised to see a "young person" be part of Rotary. HA.

We took a count of the number of Armadillos on the side of the road and came up with six. It was fun to stop at some of the old Route 66 towns and see how things have changed there. One of the gas station stops had an old run down stucco church we snapped some cool shots of.

Entering New Mexico

Todays stats:

• 6 dead Armadillos
• 1 heard of Antelope
• 699 Miles covered
• 11 hours of driving
• 1 frappaccino from Starbucks

Micah LOVES Texas

We are off!

Thursday June 12 Noon: Well, Micah, Robin, Kaitlin and I have left for the Rotary convention. The trip became an adventure as soon as we took off. The AQ van was having some electrical issues as the emergancy break alarm and signal kept chiming the first half-hour of the trip. Turns out it was some water in the electrical sensors. <sarcasm>I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THE WATER MIGHT HAVE COME FROM!</sarcasm>

So we were pretty excited to get out of Iowa and to some better weather. Well, it didn't take us long to figure out we were not going to escape weather. Kansas experienced a large number of tornado activity and rain. We got caught right in the middle of it. We stopped for dinner at Appleby's in Emporia only to learn we were right in the path of a possible tornado. We wolfed down a quick dinner and sprinted to the van. We spent the next hour and a half driving through torrential rain and even saw some early formation of tornadoes. CRAZY.

We are staying at Fairfield Inn in Wichita. We should be heading out early in the morning and are shooting for Albuquerque NM to do some camping.

Daily Stats:

• Miles Traveled:408.1
• Time in Van: 7 hours 10 minutes
• Book on CD listened to: "I Am Legend' Third time! Great book!  
• Potential Tornadoes spotted: Two
• Junk Food eaten in grams of fat: WHO CARES!

Rotarians Volunteer at Successful Serenade

Local rotarians are Glad to serve

Though it involved no singing, local Rotarians pitched in to help make the 2007 Sweet Corn Serenade a success.  Chamber director and Rotarian John Sullivan stated that this was "One of the largest crowds in recent years." Rotary helped out in many areas including; cutting corn, cooking corn, serving the food and clean up.  A big thanks to all who helped. 

A group of local Rotarians keep their eyes on the roasting corn.

Proof that Rotarians can be "corny"