Last Week's Travels - Morgantown, West Virginia

Last week I traveled to Morgantown, West Virginia to observe and evaluate a SOAR training.  Growing up in Virginia and literally two minutes from the WV state line a bunch of kids I went to high school with attended West Virginia University (WVU) but I had never visited the campus.  West Virginia was also always (and pretty much still is) the butt of every hillbilly joke around - but the state is really pretty!

Before I go on about the trip to West Virginia I should tell you about the company Christmas party!  Last Wednesday all fifty or so employees gather in the conference room to hear the President of the company give the state of the firm address.  Every year he picks a word that describes the firm's previous year and this year that word was 'BIG'.  Not too shabby!  After the address we received bonuses, gift cards and the new employees (me included) got an awesome PRA fleece hoodie!  About an hour later we all gather around the Christmas tree for a game of dirty Santa (those who participated brought in a gift, $25 or less and received a number - mine was 17 - when it was your turn you could either open a gift from under the tree or steal one that was already open - the gifts could be stolen a maximum of three times).  My first gift was a $25 gift card to Regal Cinemas which obviously didn't last long before it was stolen.  Then I opened up a $25 gift card to one of my favorite sushi restaurants!  I held on to it for a while and I was almost positive that I would be able to keep it to the bitter end until someone stole it!  It turned out okay though as my final gift was a hand made pottery coffee mug and a gift card to a local coffee shop.  Not a bad deal!  After the gift exchange we all headed over to one of the VP's houses for food and socializing!  It was a lot of fun, the food was great and I enjoyed a round of Apples to Apples with my boss and the company president.

So after all the festivities everyone was able to go home around three - but not me and my coworker - we were off to West Virginia!  Our flight left Albany around 7:15 PM and we flew to Dulles.  From there we look a turbo prop plane on to Morgantown and landed around 11 PM.  I must say I have been quite impressed with Silver Airways.  Silver is basically a fleet of turbo prop planes that fly regionally all around the U.S.  They use significantly less fuel than jets of similar size and in my opinion are a lot more comfortable.  The only downside is the noise - turbo props are much louder than regular jets, but other than that Silver Airways is pretty awesome!

The next morning we were off to the Milan Puskar Health Right Clinic which is located right off of High Street (the main street with all the good bars, shops and restaurants), on our way there our shuttle driver took us on a mini tour of WVU.  The campus was really nice and reminded me a an SEC's schools campus.  

Training location!

Both days of the training went really well and my coworker and I were able to explore Morgantown!  One thing I must say is that Morgantown is CHEAP, but in a good way.  Maybe I am just used to everything in New York being so expensive but when I can get two beers and a loaf of beer bread with honey butter for $6 I am one happy girl!  The first time we ended up going to the Morgantown Brewing Company which had awesome craft beers and great food!  The next day before our flight we went to the Black Bear which is a tex-mex style pub in downtown Morgantown that had the BEST chips and guacamole!  I could not get enough of that stuff and I think I even considered getting some to-go to take on the plane. 


Morgantown Brewing Company!

So many local beers - they were awesome!

All in all my trip to Morgantown was awesome - a good training, great food and a fun little college town to explore.  As of this trip I am finished with work travel for the rest of the year but will be heading back to Virginia for Christmas December 23rd - 26th.  After that my next trip will be to New York City in mid-January!