Roadtrip -- Peoria via Champaign (and back again)

It was a great weekend! We had the pleasure of attending an awards banquet for the Illinois Council of Teacher's of Mathmatics where our daughter (a college senior) was awarded a scholarship. It's been a while. There was a flurry of banquets back in our kids high school days, but this is the first in a long time. It's not that there haven't been other scholarships in the interum -- just no banquets.

Here are a few random comments from the weekend:

1) The banquet was held at the Hotel Pere Marquet which is a very cool, old hotel in downtown Peoria. The list of past guests included US presidents, VPs and many celebrities. We stayed there last night and although our room was great (we reserved a room and got a junior suite!), I'm guessing the former Presidents had even nicer rooms. Since this is a writer's blog, I point out that the view out the window was the Peoria Public Library. Now that was my perspective. My wife looked a little different direction and saw the view of the river. My daughter I believe mentioned that the bars across the the street were probably frequented by her brother when he was attending Bradley University.

2) Go Illinois!!! (They just beat Indiana in a night football game 55-13). Which brings up why we had to have our daughter back by around Noon for the Block I tailgate. She's a big time U of I sports fan.

3) Back to the banquet. It was refreshing to see the dedication of math teachers in the ICTM. Thanks for Kelly's scholarship -- I foresee her as a future active member!

4) It was a new experience to have Kelly buy us a drink at the bar afterward. For the record -- yes, she is 21 and no, I couldn't convince the waitress to card me.

5) WooHoo! We have another banquet in less than a month for another scholarship. This one will be brunch. Go Kelly!! Scholarship, food -- life is good.

6) I went by the site of the Darcy Pattison revision retreat (Feb 27, 2009) this morning when we brought Kelly back -- I'm enrolled, excited and revising.