I know, it’s been a while. But I’m determined to finish this series and tell you all about the rest of my WDS weekend. So, here we go!

Saturday morning I woke up early to head over to Voodoo Doughnuts to 1) see it and get a doughnut there because I’d heard plenty about it, and 2) to check another thing off my race list by ordering a “naughty” doughnut. I figured out what this meant after I got there and saw that the menu listed a “cock ‘n’ balls” doughnut. Yikes, what was that? I was soon to find out. I ordered it and ended up with this massive doughnut in the shape of… well, you get it. I was only able to eat part of it, though. I saved the rest, and actually ended up giving it away. Yes, I gave my balls away at WDS 2014! And yes, this doughnut was also filled with Bavarian cream…

After getting the doughnut, I headed back to WDS headquarters for the first sessions of the summit. The first speaker was one of my favorites, A.J. Jacobs. He’s written several books already, including The Know-It-All and A Year of Living Biblically. I haven’t read any of them yet, but I love the concept and ideas that he gets for them. His next project sounds very interesting too. He’s started using websites to do some genealogy and is trying to show people how we are actually all related somehow. Basically, we are all cousins. And he’s planning a big family reunion for next year. You can find out more about it here. But I loved what he had to say, and he was a very interesting speaker.

Right before the first break of the day between speakers, I got a message from a friend about one of the many Instagram photos I’d been posting. My friend Fia (who is also from Indiana, but now lives close to San Francisco) had realized I was in Portland… and she was too! She happened to be in town for an illustrators’ conference that was basically right across the street from WDS. She was nearing a break time as well, so we ended up meeting at a Starbucks just a couple blocks away. What a great coincidence! It was nice to catch up with her, since it’d been a few years since we’d had a chance to get together. Very cool.

After meeting up with Fia, I ended up deciding to skip the afternoon’s speakers and instead take part in the scavenger hunt that had been posted on the WDS website that would earn me 25 points in the race for completing. It took me a while, but I made it to the last scavenger hunt location, only to realize the last clue was gone! I waited around and finally someone from WDS showed up and fixed the issue. My 25 points was secure! My only regret about this is that I missed that afternoon’s speakers. While my experience doing the race this year was a lot of fun and challenging, the way it turned out was very frustrating for me, and I don’t think I’ll be doing it next year. I’m good at it, though, so I might try it again the next year after that. I mean, it did result in me doing some nice things for people, trying local tea, coffee, beer, cupcakes, and visiting the local library (which had some really cool steps I was very impressed with).

After finishing up the scavenger hunt, I met up with Gwyn! Gwyn is actually someone that I met through gRegor years and years ago. I only met her that one time, but we stayed with her when gRegor went to visit some friends in northern Indiana and I tagged along. It’s silly, but I remember her making us chili with rice, which I still make once in a while when I want an easy meal. Gwyn and I hooked back up recently when she found my blog and realized I was into craft beer. Being in Portland (a craft beer mecca), she is too. So we bonded over that and met up to check out some of her favorite craft beer spots in Portland. I’m hoping to hang out with her (and her new hubby!) a bit more when Ricky and I visit Portland again at the end of this month.

That evening, I’d made plans to attend another WDS meetup, this one for craft beer lovers! (Can you see a theme besides WDS in my visit to Portland?) We visited a few locations, including Deschutes and Lucky Labrador. What a fun night. I never knew I could have such a blast drinking beer with people I’d never even met. But we had a blast, that’s for sure, and then shared a cab ride back to our respective hotels. It was great hanging out with these people, and I hope to hook up with them again at WDS next year.

That’s it for this part. I was hoping to finish it out with Part 3 here, but I actually have more stories to tell from my last day! So stay tuned for Part 4, coming soon. This really was an epic weekend!

So after my beer meetup to kick things off for WDS, I headed over to get registered and get my WDS schwag, which included a backpack, t-shirt, water bottle, small notebooks, luggage tag, and other miscellaneous items. They try to do a pretty good job of putting together useful, nice stuff, and it is appreciated, I know. I saw plenty of t-shirts from previous years and plenty of the green backpacks in use all over town.

After checking in, I headed off to knock out some other Unconventional Race points before the Welcome Party that night. One of my first stops was to drink some local coffee and also buy a cup for the person behind me in line. I managed to find a great local coffee shop called Case Study, and the girl behind me in line was more than happy to let me buy her a cup as well.

I snagged a few more points in the race by buying a cupcake from a specific local bakery, finding an elephant, and finding the site of the Welcome Party from the very first WDS. Then it was time to head to the Welcome Party.

They were a little late getting the space for the Welcome Party opened up to everyone, and there was a line, so I decided to finish out one more task on the race list – buying an ice cream cone for someone else. I spotted a Ben & Jerry’s from the line, so I headed over there. There was a group of teenage girls in line in front of me, and it turned out that they were celebrating a birthday among them. So, I got to buy the birthday girl an ice cream cone. Buying these things for other people was one of my favorite parts of the race. It’s so funny how we go through life and almost never talk to strangers, just ignoring them as we go on about our own life. Turns out, most people are really friendly and like interacting with others. Who knew??

The Welcome Party was fun, and of course I got to meet even more new people. I stuck around for a while, but soon headed out for a wine crawl with more new friends. Funny how I wasn’t entirely sure about coming to WDS and if I would fit in since it seems like there are a lot of entrepreneurs, and I’m really not one, but instead work a pretty “conformist” corporate job. But, oddly enough, in the first day there, I had easily managed to find people to talk both beer and travel (two of my favorite things) with. No worries about fitting in here!

Finally sharing some of my thoughts/experiences from WDS. Here we go with Part 1…

What. A. Weekend. I have SO much to share with you guys from my WDS weekend in Portland. You know how when you have a good thing going on and sometimes it just seems like the energy is flowing right and all kinds of cool things happen? That was this weekend. Just… so much. I’m kind of in awe. And I love it. But let me tell you about it. Or at least start telling you about it, because there really is a lot to tell!

So my weekend at WDS kind of started before I even left. If you are registered to attend WDS, then you get emails about it. And there were increasingly more the closer it got to this weekend. One email that I got this week before I left was about something called the Unconventional Race. Now, I had no idea that they did this until I got the email. But it is the type of thing that is right up my alley. It was basically like an Amazing Race/scavenger hunt type of game that they were doing at WDS. It included all sorts of tasks that you could earn points from. Some of the tasks were for before the actual WDS event and included things like dressing your pet up as a WDS mascot, borrowing a metal spoon on the flight there, and taking photos with your flight attendant and pilot (all of which I did and earned points for, BTW!). I started doing a few of the tasks and realized – hey. I’m actually near the top of the list here! So of course, I had to keep going. ALL weekend. Because I stayed in the top 3 highest point earners until… about a half hour before the deadline. Doh! I only missed being in the top 3 by 1 POINT. What. The. Heck. But… while I did honestly miss out on some things because of competing in the race, there were also a lot of cool things that I DID make it too, and also a lot of cool things that happened because I was in the race. So, we’ll get to all of that, because I do have a lot to tell.

I boarded my flight prepared to start knocking out some more of these tasks for the race. First up, borrow a metal spoon. Now, did you even know that they had metal spoons on flights? I’m pretty sure they are for people in first class, because I know I’ve never seen one before. But I asked the flight attendant about it when they came around to bring drinks, and she was nice enough to let me borrow and take a picture of it for the race. Which also sparked a conversation with my seat mates, earning me more points for making friends on the plane. Then, when we landed, I asked for a picture with the flight attendant as well as the pilot. Did you know that pilots are actually really nice people in pretty thankless jobs? They were so friendly that I’m pretty sure that people on their flights rarely talk to them. They were all about the picture and even invited me into the cockpit to sit in the pilot seat! So, so cool. Between all of that and the amazing scenery I got to see (we flew over the Grand Canyon and right next to Mt Hood), I’d honestly say it had to be the best flight I’ve ever been on, hands down.

Taking a step back in time for a minute, I had actually been following the #WDS2014 hashtag on Twitter the last couple of days before WDS, and tweeted with a lot of cool people and talked to some on Facebook in WDS groups. There were a lot of meet ups planned for before the summit, and I was actually kind of sad to not get there until Friday morning. But, someone tweeted at me that figured out I was into craft beer. If you are into craft beer and don’t follow @brewexplorers on Twitter, do it! They are a really cool couple that are into beer and adventure, and I hope to meet up with them again next month while Ricky and I are in Portland. They said to me and a couple of other beer lovers, “hey, let’s meet up at this place at noon on Friday!” So I said “Sure!” Now, coming back to the race… one of the tasks was to create a meet up. And since this one wasn’t official, I decided to make it official and earn some points. It worked out well because I found out that @brewexplorers (aka Jon and Kimberly) actually weren’t even going to WDS this year. They just like the mindset of it and had been following the hashtag and found us. But creating the meet up prompted several others to come join us, and we ended up with a great group of beer lovers and had a lot of fun discussing life over great food and great beer. It was a perfect way to start my weekend!

As you can tell, this is going to involve several posts to tell you all about this, since I’m only up to Friday afternoon right now. But I hope you might keep following along, because it was a weekend that I want to share and if you’re interested, I think you might get something out of it too. So please – stay tuned! Part 2 on the way soon…

Also, if you’d like to view ALL of my photos from WDS and you’re friends with me on Facebook, go check them out here.