One of the perks of being a volunteer child advocate is that occasionally I get to travel to exotic places. (That means places outside of Utah. Hee, hee) Anyway, I spent a few days at the National PTA Convention in San Diego last month and am finally blogging about it. I flew for the first time on JetBlue and baby, that’s the way to fly. Know how they advertise about extra leg room? It’s true. We spread out and read all the way there. Then I got off the plane and just soaked in that lovely humidity which makes my skin look great and my hair stop looking like straw. Great!
I attended some interesting workshops and got to hear Dr. Sanjay Gupta from CNN as one of the keynote speakers. He talked about the epidemic of child overweight and obesity in the United States and showed some clips from CNN Fit Nation events. The highlight was hearing Dr. Maya Angelou as the other keynote speaker. She allowed people to take pictures for the first four minutes she was on the stage and then everyone had to stop because it’s too distracting for her. The camera flashes were going off all over the room-it was paparazzi to the max. Unfortunately, my pictures were too far away and not very good. She told some stories of her very difficult life and then talked about “rainbows in the clouds”. She said that wherever she goes she has rainbows in the clouds with her. The rainbows are all the people that have helped her or made a difference in her life. She told us to be rainbows in the clouds of others and to think about and appreciate all those who have been rainbows in our own lives. She was great and very inspirational.
We also got to spend an afternoon in Old Town San Diego and did some shopping, sightseeing, and dining. On the last day we had a few hours before our flight, so four of us went to the Gaslamp Quarter for lunch and my friends indulged me by walking down to the harbor so that I could at least see the water. We didn’t get to go to the beach and I was really feeling withdrawals about being that close to the beach and not getting to go. So they took me to the water and it was beautiful. Sigh!
