The Outdoor Retailer summer '12

Two times every year, I pull out all the stops, fly to Salt Lake City, Utah, and write until I'm fried. The Outdoor Retailer show will do that to you, especially when you work for the daily newspaper . The first day, the demo day is located on a beautiful reservoir - with about a half mile spread. We arrived just when things were starting out, with each of us on different missions. Mine was to write an article on the 'alternative outdoor', so I spent the next hour and a half running around trying out logrolling, elliptical mountain biking and shooting kids' foam toys. After making it almost a quarter of the way through the vast field of tents, I looked at my watch and an hour had already gone by! It was down to the wire with only a half hour left and more wacky items to find. I raced from tent to tent and made it back to the car just in time to meet up with the group and return to the newsroom.

The action packed day wasn't over yet, since I had to write the article, and cover another event that night. I cranked out the word count, and raced over to the Futurist Outdoor Nation event. Thankfully, there was food at the bar the event had rented, so I was able to munch my second meal of the day at 7PM while discussing the future of the outdoor industry. It was a great and inspiring event with young members from many industry businesses gathering to discuss the industry as a whole, cafe discussion style. But the chill cafe vibe couldn't last long because I needed to return to my room, write a draft and be ready to do it all again the next day!