In this post, I chat through our journey between Tennessee and Colorado, stopping in St. Louis and Hays, Kansas. I touch on working from our beautiful hotel in St. Louis, reflect on conference goers and even show how I work while Kailahs driving.
Glo exploring the lobby at the Chase Park Plaza
The week’s journey: This was a crazy week. We left Gatlinburg, Tennessee on Sunday and arrived in Estes Park, Colorado on Wednesday night. It was an aggressive three days of travel, but we had an awesome stay in St. Louis at the historic Chase Park Plaza hotel. It was the perfect stopover, to see the famous St. Louis Gateway Arch (our second national park of the trip!) and grab a little Missouri BBQ. We were fortunate to get set up with a King suite at the Park Plaza, which had a living room (for the girls) and then a king bedroom for us. This made our stay VERY comfortable and much less stressful. We were also perfectly located next to a park and several restaurants (including a BBQ spot that we thoroughly enjoyed, called Salt and Smoke). Highly recommend!
We visited the Arch on our second day - mostly to cross it off our list - but were pleasantly surprised. Coming from New England (where Spring had yet to “spring”) the sprawling green grass and pink blossomed trees provided a perfect afternoon of lounging around and letting the girls roam. We also learned that you can take a tram up the Arch - we had no idea! Unfortunately the tickets sell out in advance, so we couldn’t go. I think that worked out for the better though because I saw the tram car model in the lobby and I’m pretty sure I didn’t want to cram my 6’ 5” frame into that thing.
The ladies yelling at me in front of the Arch
Following our stay in St. Louis, we headed further west, stopping in Hays, Kansas. We chose Hays, simply as a burn and turn location to break up a very long drive. We stayed at a relatively new Hilton Garden Inn. After going in with low expectations of this leg of our stay, I’ll be honest, I was pleasantly surprised. If for some reason you find yourself needing to cross Kansas, Hays is an easy and comfortable stop.
(If you want to see our exact route, with some extra content, head over to our route map!)
On to business: Since the majority of this 3 day journey was during the “business week”, I obviously had obligations to deliver on as we drove across.
“WWD” (please ignore that finger print ridden screen)
This might surprise some people, but sometimes I work while we are driving down the road. And I don’t mean work “offline” - I mean literally logged into the network on my laptop and/or on the phone, knocking out deliverables - going 70 MPH down the highway. I keep my connection through using my phone as a hotspot (or leverage a secondary hotspot if needed). I think most people would be surprised of the internet speeds I’m able to pull from the road - in many cases, faster than my house (Yes, Comcast, that is a shot over your bow).
Working from the lobby at the Chase Park Plaza
In comparison to “working while driving” (lets call it “WWD” from now on), logging hours at our hotel in St. Louis was much more convenient. Not only did we have the suite (with a desk), the hotel also has an entire conference center, with WIFI for guests. And if that wasn’t enough, St. Louis is a 5G Ultra Wideband city. I was pulling download speeds of 800+ MBPS through my phone, which in less-nerdy terms, is REALLY freaking fast for cellular internet.
A bit of reflection: One unexpected realization that I had while working remotely in St. Louis was related to the conferences going on in our hotel. Having recently left a “full time role” in corporate, I thought seeing all of these people dressed up, networking, eating, drinking etc., might make me miss the old grind a bit. But honestly, it had the opposite effect…
The girls were all waiting for me as I was making one last trip to our room, to get the remainder of our belongings (before hitting the road for Hays). I specifically remember riding the elevator down with a group of conference goers and for some odd reason, we were stopping at every floor. The doors would open and then shut. 9th floor, 8th floor, 7th floor…and so on. None of the floor buttons were lit up, and we just kept stopping. All of us just stood there on autopilot waiting for the damn thing to reach the lobby. Eventually I made a “this must be a really courteous elevator” joke (terrible I know) and reached across for the lobby button. As we zoomed down, I couldn’t help but think about how intentional every single minute of my days are. Am I a little overwhelmed? Sure. Feel stretched a bit thin at times? Yes. But I have a reason to get to the bottom of the elevator shaft…
***For the record, I don’t think all conference-goers are on autopilot and definitely don’t think conferences aren’t valuable. This was just an example that hit me “mid-stride” in our journey and really solidified some of my recent lifestyle design decisions.
Anyway, man…what a week. Travel, work, entrepreneurship, parenting, being a good partner…it’s been a challenging balance.
More to come next week as I talk through setting up an “air bnb office”.
Kyle