Travel Time

One of the greatest things about my job change last May was that my travel went from roughly 60% to almost non-existent. It has been fantastic to not miss all those little things with the kids that I was depending on my wife to provide the parental face for. She definitely pulls more than her fair share of that still but I have been FAR more available to participate in my kids lives over the last 9 months. Before last week I think I had made a three day trip to New York, and 2 or 3 overnighters in that entire 9 month period. I think that is what is making last week and next week feel so painful.

Last week I spent Monday through Thursday in Greeneville, TN at a company safety conference. Very enjoyable, great hotel, learned quite a bit, but still much harder than a 4 day trip was just a year ago. Having got out of that routine, it was VERY hard not to come home to a wife and family every night. Combine that with a buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and the associated impact on the scale upon my return) and you have a depressing trip. I did have my highest mileage running week since my race last fall but that was not enough to offset the additional calories from an "I can resist anything but temptation" buffet table.

Next week I fly to Paris for a company meeting. Since this is a bit nicer location than Greeneville, TN, I am trying to stay on the positive side and focus on the experience. It will be very hard to enjoy the "experience" however, without my wife. Spouses are welcome to come along for this meeting and I invited mine but all with an air of reality that there are 4 little ones that we can't just dump on someone, during a school week, while I drag my wife to the other side of the world. I have done this kind of trip in the past, Hungary, Spain, England, without my wife but somehow Paris is different. I feel like my wife should be with me on my first trip there somehow. Nothing I can do about it now I guess, other than to promise her that someday she and I will visit these locations I enjoyed so much... plus others.

So this post has no real theme other than the joys and frustrations of travel, for business, not pleasure. It is most definitely not one and the same.

But for now, any of my French friends have suggestions as to what I should try and see on Monday the 3rd? I arrive late morning and will have the rest of that day to go sightseeing before my meetings the 4th through the 6th. So, if you only had one afternoon.... what would you go see? And don't say the Eiffel Tower, because that, I am saving for my wife...