Bleisure trip

Word of the day: Bleisure trip:

This is when people take a business trip (and they include leisure time).

Used in a sentence, by Danny Pettry:

I imagine many recreational therapists who are heading out to Orlando, FL for the next American Therapeutic Recreation Association (ATRA) conference are taking a bleisure trip.

Based on my personal experiences, all of my ATRA experiences had been bleisure trips.

I enjoy learning. It is something I do for a hobby, so conferences are very rewarding (as well as tiring).

There has been something FUN to do in each town ATRA holds their conferences based on my experiences.

Some people go golfing. I can recall many people going golfing at a conference in Greenville, South Carolina. (I believe it was a Southeastern Symposium conference). I don’t golf (unless it has a windmill and a waterfall and something entertaining).

I always go out to the local restaurants with fellow recreational therapists. So many fun places in every town. I always stop by the mall and shopping center in each town. Those are things I find enjoyable.

Here are some of my experiences that I recall:

• Kansas City, Missouri: World War I Museum, big former train-station, Hallmark headquarters, Craolya headquarters, Kansas City chiefs (I wanted to go see them play real bad, but didn’t get to for some reason). They have a real nice restaurant that brings your food out on small trains. So cool. Oh yeah – they have a real neat model map of the town. You can push a button (for where you want to go) and a light pops up to show you where that part is at).
• District of Columbia: a lot of museums. Metro subway was neat.
• Bloomington, Indiana: Colts! Hoosier state (Indiana University). Real nice mall in downtown Bloomington.
• Minneapolis, Minnesota: we took a riverboat down the Mississippi, which was one of the most entertaining and relaxing activities. I also stopped by the Mall of America.
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: This is like a really giant version of Charleston, West Virginia (with more to do). I ate with my good friend and mentor Charlie Dixon and his wife at the HardRock Café there. Charlie won the distinguished fellow of the year award by ATRA. A lot of sports: Penguins, Pirates, Steelers.
• Chattanooga, Tennessee: quaint town with a lot of culture in downtown. Spent the day walking around the park with fellow Rec Therapists and we found some real nice restaurant there.
• Chicago Illinois: wow – that city is just too big for me. I felt a bit scared there. Luckily the conference was slightly outside of Chicago. I went to the local mall with fellow rec therapists. But I didn’t do anything else there. A few RTs told me they ran into some suspicious characters. There were some special events and activities at the conference. Some girls were having a hoola-hooping contest!