A trip to Carroll, Iowa

I had couple days of professional development (PD) in Carroll, Iowa. As with the last class I took through the AEA, I would greatly appreciate the ability to contact all the participants a couple weeks before the class. The best meetings are the informal ones. The best information is not from the instructor (sorry to break the news), but from your fellow participants in the trenches. So if we could talk about out-of-class arrangements like lodging and meals that would be groovy. AEA, if you care about customer service, please heed this note. Conferences where everyone is housed in one building naturally have informal networking occur. There has to be a solution for events that are not housing everyone under one roof. We easily could have eaten a meal or camped together had we been able to ask each other's plans.

Yes, I touched an alligator for PD. Wouldn't you?

Now for a little review of Swan Lake State Park and Carroll, IA. Swan Lake Education Center is a nice facility. The naturalist is a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable man. The wi-fi is strong and serves the upper campground. Many hiking and biking opportunities abound at Swan Lake. You can purchase concessions, fishing licenses, and bait at the center, have programming, etc.

Carroll is a very "walker friendly" town. I found a sharrow during an evening run going north out of town. It was short, and I was happy to see it being used by walkers. The mall and eating establishments were very easy to walk. I stayed at the Adams Street B n B.

Ice cream and many coffee flavorings await you in the reading room.

I was able to walk to dinner, shop, sightsee, geocache, and run 4 miles all before dark. Isn't summer wonderful that way?

Spicy pork tacos at the Rancho Grande.

I started with just one bag, and ended up carrying three back to the b n b.

The big pencil tells you where to shop for office supplies.

Found it! GC1GYXX Carroll Time Capsule

I would say that Adel is more cache-dense than Carroll. I am not sure how they compare in population and industry, but they seem quite different and unique from each other. In a good way.