Gardens by Kelly Productions

I know, I know. I didn’t get anything posted last night to officially kickoff my blog coverage of GWA. When I got back to my room last night I realized that I’d been up for 20 hours. I don’t know about you, but that’s bedtime for me! Here I am this morning (I’m still functioning on Iowa time) fired up with all the juicy gossip and details that all you faithful followers of the blogosphere are dying to hear. All I can say is that garden writers party hardest.

Getting to Portland was a piece of cake, minus the hasty consumption of a burrito by my seatmate on the flight from Minneapolis to Portland. For those of you who’ve had to sit through a meal conversation (or even just a meal with me), you know I LOVE burritos. But at 9:30 AM and after just having ate breakfast (which I normally don’t do) and not to mention being in an enclosed space with 200+ other people, I was hardly in the mood for a burrito. You’ll imagine my relief when arriving at the hotel in Portland (several hours later) I found that the in-house restaurant is a cantina called Eduardo’s.

Arriving at the hotel was an adventure in itself I suppose. I waited 3.5 hours to get a room (they were cleaning) only to find that I’d been put in the Swedish hostel special. Seriously I’m not complaining but I wanted to find some excuse to talk about Swedish hostels. I’ve got a lovely view as evidenced here. Portland is absolutely beautiful!

But the opening of the trade show was simply phenomenal. After having not seen many friends and colleagues for a year (in some cases more!), it was a splendid reunion made even better by delicious cranberry martini’s that knocked your socks off (thanks Suzi!), a succulent assortment of Oregon cheeses, and little drink tickets. It’s impossible to have too much fun at GWA, but most of us came close last night.

After having enjoyed the trade show and the best part of the publisher’s reception last night, which incidentally was the smoked salmon, Sharee Solow, Bobbie Schwartz, Steph Cohen, and I enjoyed some of Eduardo’s Mexican cuisine (I was in the mood again). Delicious! The tequila shrimp fajitas and chicken enchiladas were exceptional!