Ag Media Summit

Mickey's Diner in downtown St. Paul  

As summer starts to draw to a close, my favorite way to wind down this wonderful time of year is to attend the Ag Media Summit.  This year's meeting was in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Upon arrival, we were starving, so we went to Mickey's Diner.  The place was one of those old dining cars, and it reminded me of Shortcakes in Stillwater.  It's always open and has served a wide variety of fried stuff to Minnesotans and lots of famous people.  There was seriously nothing healthy on the menu, but you can get breakfast 24 hours a day!  I had a hamburger and fries.  It was tasty, but I smelled like a hamburger for the rest of the day.

Back at the hotel (Crowne Plaza), somehow, someway I got a poolside room.  I never get the good room, so you can understand my excitement.  The first night we were there, we hung outside my room and watched people swim.

However, I was rather confused at the bathroom configuration. It was as if the contractors completed the bathroom and thought "hmmm....something's missing.  Oh yeah! The toilet!  Let's just cram it under the counter and no one will ever notice."  Weird.

Before all the conference festivities began, we deemed it essential to go shopping at the Mall of America.  It was way bigger than I could have imagined.  It has an amusement park inside!  We were there only two hours, so we barely got to have the full experience, but I found a wonderful scrapbooking store there.  We ate lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.  They had fried shrimp, grilled shrimp, boiled shrimp, shrimp gumbo, shrimp cocktail, shrimp salad, coconut shrimp.....that's about it.

For the Ag Media Summit Welcome Party, we took a riverboat cruise up the Mississippi River.  It was really fun, and the views were great.  As usual, Boelte Hall had their props set up for pictures and we had to see who could be the funniest.

The Texas Tech crew.

Defending myself from Viking attackers

The OSU alumni who are now faculty members. Nerds.

All the OSU alumni and students who attended AMS.

During the conference, I won a Flip Cam from Alpharma and Charleston Orwig.  I was so excited about this, and couldn't wait to shoot my first video.  And here it is.  Special thanks to Lindsay Kennedy for starring in this video and for coming up with the material.

The final night was a little dressier for the cocktail reception and banquet.  My students looked so cute! The banquet was followed by a dance, but since I tend to embarrass myself when dancing, I opted to go back to the room and pack.

I slept most of the trip back--little did I know, I was getting sick.  Every time I travel, I get sick!  But as we were approaching Lubbock, I got so excited to see how green and pretty everything looks this year.  

So here's to another great Ag Media Summit, and as I close this entry, I get a bit of a panicked feeling because I know summer is almost over and I am so not prepared for the fall semester.

Next year is in New Orleans.  Woohoo!!!