Closing the Gap and more

For many years, I have wanted to go to a conference sponsored by Closing the Gap, an organization dedicated to information about assistive technology for people with disabilities. This year, all the pieces finally fell into place, and I registered, booked a hotel room, and took leave from work.

The only detail remaining was how to get there. My husband suggested we drive and do some visiting and genealogy work along the way. We did just that and  had a great time.

Highlights included visiting cemeteries where my forebears are buried. Paul photographs gravestones to add to a website called "Find-A-Grave."

We spent the night in the suburbs of Milwaukee.  

Once we found a hotel, supper was the next order of business. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but the food was very good. I had two tacos and a tamal, all very good. Paul likes burritos, so he ordered one here. It was the biggest burrito either of us has ever seen.

We found an amazing pancake house for breakfast the next morning, not far from our hotel. We had a wonderful waitress who made the experience even better.

From Milwaukee, we drove to Minneapolis, where my conference was to be held. I went to many workshops and enjoyed seeing all the technology on display in the exhibit hall. One of the frustrations of having a child with special needs is the lack of access to the equipment that he needs. The local stores just don't carry augmentative communication devices, wheelchair accessories, specialized software, etc., so getting a closeup look at things we may want to buy for him is a real treat.

After the conference, I flew home, while Paul continued the genealogy tour southward through Illinois and Iowa, and eventually landed in Jackson, Mississippi to visit some long-time friends. He was successful in finding at least some of the people he was looking for. He got a chance to visit with a relative of mine who also does genealogy, and they had a good time comparing notes. He also visited someone who went on his recent Friendship Force trip to Russia.

Australia--help--buying T-shirts

Sarah and I went to Australia. We started in Brisbane so she could visit a friend she knows from her Internet projects. Driving a car in Australia is an interesting experience. We are renting cars twice...in Brisbane and in Tasmania. My method of avoiding disaster is to concentrate really hard on where I am and what I need to do (e.g., you have to look where you are not used to looking in making turns, and to make a right turn, you have to go across the traffic...). We got lost getting to the hotel and ended up going around in circles on various streets for several attempts. Every time we saw Turbot St., we knew we were still in trouble. We finally found the hotel and were very glad to park the car.

We found Brisbane to be very friendly in terms of walking around and finding things we needed. I needed an SD card for my camera and found one at a very good price in a local dept. store. Sarah needed a haircut, and we found a school for hairdressers where she got a nice cut for $10, with the attention of the teacher and student and maybe some other people.

Sarah's visit with her friend was "awesome." I used the time she was away to visit a park near my hotel that was pretty awesome, walk around, etc.

One of the things we did in Brisbane was buy the first of many t-shirts (not for me, though I told Sarah that I reserved the right to wear her t-shirts if I wanted to!).