A "Training" Trip

 The bank where I work, Traders Bank, Inc.,  is held by Premier Holding Company.  The holding company  recently purchased more banks in surrounding counties and states.  To make the holding company more uniform, they are changing the names of all the banks in the holding company to Premier Bank, Inc.  The merger is complete, but once the conversion takes place, all banks will be using the same "system".  In order to learn the new system, a few employees were selected to attend a training in Orlando, Florida.  I was chosen to go and then bring back the information to train the remaining employees.

Here I am at Yeager Airport on Sunday, April 17th.

I flew out of Charleston, WV to Charlotte, NC and then from Charlotte to Orlando, Florida.

The weather was beautiful.  The first flight was on a smaller plane and was a little choppy and rough.  But, the second flight was on a jet and was much smoother.

 The views from the plane window were breathtaking.

 When I arrived in Orlando, there was a limo there to take me to the hotel.   The limo drivers name was Gus, so I had to take this picture to send to Morgan.

 I had a suite at Homewood Suites of Hilton.  This bed was comfortable, and I had it all to myself.

 This is the room that I trained in Monday through Friday from 9am till 4pm (most days the training was over before 4pm).

 This is the view from the window of the room I was training in.  During each break, I loved to stand and watch the activity from the window and wonder where each person was headed and why (and of course to wonder where my family was and what they were doing at that moment).

 The front of the building that held my training class.

 Each day for lunch, the class ate at this little cafe' in the Charles Schwab building.  These chefs asked what you would like and prepared the lunch there before you.

 After lunch, we'd sit outside with our feet upon the railing in front of this fountain.  The weather was just beautiful all week long.

 Each evening, we'd go out to dinner.  This evening we went to the Cheesecake Factory and the food was excellent!

 I had to get my piece of Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake to go.  I ate it the next night while in bed watching TV.  It was so good I could just bathe in it!

 This is the shuttle that took us from the hotel to wherever we wanted to eat each evening.  It also took us back and forth from the hotel to the training center each day.

 While downtown one evening, we decided that we wanted to go someplace different than where we had the shuttle drop us at, so we had to call a cab.

 One evening we went shopping at Winter Park.  It is an upscale neighborhood with these quaint little boutiques.  The prices were quite high, so we did alot of window shopping.

 We ate dinner at Spice in Winter Park.  This fellow entertained us while we ate outside.

 Headed home!  I missed my family so, so much!  I just wanted to be home! 
 This is going through security at the Orlando airport.

 Boarding the first flight from Orlando to Detroit, MI.

 Before takeoff.

 In flight to Detroit where we would then board a much smaller plane to arrive in Charleston, WV.

 Is this picture not just breathtaking?  It was beautiful up above the clouds. 

In the airport at Detroit, we hurriedly got to the gate to board the plane to Charleston.  We had been there for probably 10-15 minutes and at the same time, two people realized that the boarding gate did not say that the flight was to Charleston.  After a few questions, it was determined that the gate number had been changed.  We had about 10 minutes to get from gate B12 to C18.  Detroit is a BIG airport.....so, we had to RUN to make it to the correct gate in time.  And run we did....I was coming home one way or another.  There was no way I was missing that last flight to take me home to West Virginia!  Did I mention that I missed my family!!  There was nothing sweeter than when my eyes finally scanned around baggage pickup at Yeager and spotted Jim!  I could have cried, I missed him so much.

Anyway, now that the week is over, I am glad that I got to go.  I feel like I probably have the advantage at work by having the training in Orlando. 

 But, once again.....I'm glad to be home. 

 It's where I belong!