Welcome to catamount country!

The University of Vermont Catamounts, that is!

(Immediate problem: I can't believe Blogger thinks "catamount" is not a real word.  Take that disapproving squiggly red line elsewhere, please!  Thank you.)

Today I trekked by air from MSP to Burlington for a four-day conference on communications hosted by my job's national professional organization.  I've been looking forward to this for a long time, and from what I saw today, it's going to be an amazing and enriching week.  Travel was smooth, even with a layover at O'Hare.  I got into Burlington and was brought over to campus by a cabdriver who not only identified Minnesota as the site of Little House on the Prairie but also rattled off all of the actors from that TV show and provided updates on their acting work since that series ended.  I was suitably impressed.

I arrived early enough to take a walk around this beautiful campus.  I'm enamored by this catamount mascot (and the little paws painted on the sidewalks) and will probably provide more information about him this week, but in case you were wondering, this is a catamount:

I hope to not see a real catamount this week.

Once I got to the western edge of campus, I could see peeks of Lake Champlain down the hill.  This was a powerful lure, and I felt pulled toward the lake.  I got down to the waterfront about 15 minutes later, and I could've stayed all afternoon, but I checked the time and realized I needed to start back in order to be in good time for the opening session.  That's when I realized that the "powerful lure" that "pulled [me] toward the lake" was actually a powerful downhill, so the trip back was one massive, hot uphill.  Oops.

We had a fascinating session on the current landscape of social media, and I hope to write a separate post on all of the lessons I gleaned from these sessions later, probably on the way home when I'm processing everything.  (But for now, just try to watch this and not tear up. Just me?)  Later, the whole group headed to the ECHO Lake Aquarium for a networking reception.  The aquarium is right on Lake Champlain, and the night was heavenly. 

Everyone I talked with was great, and there were even Adirondack chairs (my favorite) on the aquarium's deck.  This was my view from my Adirondack chair: 

 

And the same view, later in the evening:

 

I'm excited for what the rest of the week holds.