Oregon Funeral Directors Convention

Our next stop was the capitol city of Salem, for the Oregon Funeral Directors Convention.
We tucked the truck underneath the overhang at the Salem Conference Center. It was not too difficult to get into but we had to turn the wrong way up a one way street to pull it in. Abigail was in the chase car blocking traffic for me, while Frank Lorbach and Dana Lee held up traffic on the one way. The whole maneuver only took about 30 seconds, but there was plenty of honking from the morning commuters letting me know I was going the wrong way. Abigail was even introduced to the unofficial state bird by one disgruntled motorist. It was all worth the fuss though. The conference center is a fantastic venue right in the heart of the city. It is connected with the Phoenix Grand Hotel where we stayed for the duration of our event. It was an excellent hotel and had the best complimentary breakfast of any place we have yet been to.



Our events went really well. We had a private showing during the conference cocktail party and got a good response from our guests. I was assured it wasn't just the cocktails either. We really enjoyed getting to talk with the guests about Oregon.



We also had several days of being open to the public in some really nice weather. We had well over 200 visitors while we were in Salem.

Lake Hills Memorial in Utah

On our recent visit to Lake Hills Memorial in Sandy, UT we had some very special visitors; the fifth grade classes from a nearby school took a little field trip to see us. We fully enjoyed hosting these ninety some kids on a beautiful Utah day. With the sun shining each group was brought through and then treated with juice and cookies by Lake Hills Memorial. The staff and community of Sandy was a pleasure to visit with.

Utah Funeral Directors Convention

We experienced the full fury of March in Wyoming as we headed west out of Cheyenne. The winds were gusting up to 50 miles per hour and we experienced some total white out conditions as we came over the mountain pass into Laramie. We just got in line crawled along with the other semis heading west. Visibility was so low that we didn't even realize we were behind a doubles tanker for about 25 miles until we got out of the storm. It was pretty scary but luckily it was mostly blowing snow so the roads weren't too slick. We will definitely have to try ane time our mountain runs better in the future.

After spending the night in Rawlins WY, we cruised into Salt Lake City and 50 degree weather the next day. What a beautiful city. It is completely surrounded by snow covered mountains this time of year. Our visit to SLC was to take part in the annual Utah Funeral Directors Conference and was sponsored by the Utah Funeral Directors Association. We set up on the plaza of EnergySolutions Arena where the Utah Jazz play hoops. It was a very nice location. We has about 350 people visitors come through. Many of whom were funeral directors in town for the convention. One of our more notable visitors was "Big Horn" the president of the Utah chapter of the Patriot Guard Riders.

Cheyenne Train Depot

On March 28th and 29th we spent a great weekend in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The exhibit was located on the plaza right in front the Union Pacific Railroad Depot. It was built in 1887 to support the growing city. The history of Cheyenne and the railroad are one and the same as the city sprung up as major stop on the first transcontinental railroad. The structure now houses a great museum about Cheyenne and the Union Pacific Railroad as well as a tasty grill pub called Shadows.
We had over 400 visitors come in over the weekend. A few which were excited Easter egg hunters who were unaware that their prey had been moved across the street to The Plains Hotel. The hunt was originally scheduled to be in the plaza but was moved inside due to weather. The Plains Hotel was a local sponsor helping to get us there.