Hilton Heeeeeeeed

I took a trip last week! The day I left San Diego was like this:

bye baby girl

I got to the airport at 10pm and had a little warm milk to help me sleep on the flight

Somewhere in the weirdly abbreviated version of night that is the redeye, the sun came up and I ran to catch this little guy

which brought me to this little guy on Hilton Head

Baggage claim, island style. The guy just handed you your bag. 

I was sleeeeepy and psyched, and the hotel had been lovely enough to accomodate my early arrival so I checked in at 10am and opened the window to my balcony and saw this:

Good morning, Hilton Head!

I got right out of my overtired travel togs and into a big fluffy white robe and onto a giant cloud of a bed and let the sound of the crashing atlantic ocean sing me to sleep. I've done the redeye thing enough to know that a solid nap is crucial to one's survival, but I had to be careful not to let my body claim the full night's sleep it so desperately craved or I'd be lost in a desolate wasteland of jetlag for the duration of my 5 day stay. I set my alarm for 3 hours, and when Bob Marley broke into song at the appointed hour, I got up and got dressed and set out to meet the joint. I was hungry, but antsy from having sat and laid and lounged for so many hours in a row (I got used to that eventually), so I thought I'd hit the fitness center for a minute before finding food. I wandered down the wrong staircase and ended up outside, saw how close the beach was and went to take a gander:

It was so vast! The sand was packed like a highway, and there was pedestrian and bicycle traffic travelling hither and yon, and I formulated a fantastic plan for my pre-meal movement:

even though the hotel rental was way overpriced, an hour on this rig still cost less than that beer I had at the airport

That was a high point. And then, I rewarded myself thusly:

That evening, I went to the welcome reception for the conference that had brought me to Hilton Head. I visited with vendors and sipped the nice wine and mingled with the fine folks, but none of my homies were there yet so it was hard not to be here:

But then my people did start to arrive, and we parked ourselves at a table in the terrible hotel bar and expanded into two, then three tables as everyone arrived and somehow knew exactly where to find me. Take that, jetlag. We made it an early night, but not nearly as early as any of us had promised myself, and no one knows who was responsible for the veritable frat house pyramid of empty wine bottles. Oy.

There's something really cool about the east coast, you guys

sunrise

I always order room service for breakfast on the first day. It's a great way to ease in to the day's work and shake off the weird sleep while slowly revealing whatever nonsense I ended up throwing into my suitcase.

and you get silver and glassware to keep for the duration

After a full day of workshops and keynotes and hotel food and flourescent lights in a windowless room 50 feet from the ocean, a group of us headed out for drinks and dinner

photo credit, Amy from Georgia

me and my peeps, and my fire shooting breasts

After a delicious and decadent dinner, we went back to the hotel and some of us ended up at the godawful bar for more delicious decadence while I waited for the Next Big Thing to happen....

to be continued...... here's a hint: