In the campaign state of mind

Unless you've been hiding in a cave, you're probably aware that the presidential campaigns are well underway. "Only in America" is already once again etched into my brain. POTUS and his staff appear in my dreams on a regular basis. I've been on the road with POTUS quite a bit in the past few months but only now is the travel really picking up. In an effort to be a better blogger, I'd like to catch you up on my adventures with POTUS but there's not enough time because the campaign season is about to crescendo to its peak on November 6th. But I can condense the past few months into a few short categories of trips.

First, there is the West Coast fundraising swing. I somehow ended up with these trips rather frequently. As you probably know, California, Oregon, Washington states are not battleground states for this election. But there are many, many rich Democrats in these areas so we visited them numerous times. It would usually start with a stop somewhere like Denver, for example, for an official event and then would include stops in Seattle, Portland, and of course Los Angeles, or San Francisco. I did this trip three times in the first month after I got back from our honeymoon. So it was quality and quantity time on an airplane which was really helpful in getting our thank you cards done! The scene was usually the same for these trips... a convention hall or hotel conference room, or occasionally a theater. And by and large, it was the same speech over and over. In the course of these trips, I also got to run into a couple of friends on the West Coast, as well as finally make it to San Francisco, and later eat a maple bacon VooDoo donut in Portland, Oregon. Yep, that's correct. It's a donut with maple syrup icing with three pieces of bacon on top. Somehow, it tasted pretty good.

The second category so far is the Day Trip. One reason I like these is that I get to sleep in my own bed at night. Generally these trips are to Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, etc.- all the important swing states. The major downfall of this category is that there have not always been chartered planes to these stops. But this category brought POTUS to my hometown of Roanoke which was pretty cool! I was even interviewed on the local news! (Side note, don't let it throw you off. The reporter's name was Becky so she has her segment of On the Road with Becky. I'm pretty sure I've been a lot more places than she has but she's really nice and I won't try to steal her segment title.)

FOX 21/27 – WFXR Roanoke/WWCW Lynchburg News, Weather

It was a really neat experience to see POTUS in downtown Roanoke and it probably deserved a blog post all to itself. But life has been a bit crazy and so it just gets a mention in this post! And a picture too!

The final category is the Bus Tour. I've done this twice now and am gearing up for another one next week in Florida. This is where you spend at least two days riding around a swing state in a caravan of buses. My most recent experience was two days in Ohio. Two. Long. Days. I saw a lot of Ohio and yet nothing at the same time! We worked our cabooses off and even during our down time of riding through the countryside of Ohio, which I'm sure was scenic, we were doing liveshots from the press bus. Most of the stops were in small towns and in outdoor parks. Oh, and it was also at least 100 degrees. So every time we stopped for an event, we would lose approximately 10 pounds in sweat while waiting for POTUS to catch up with us and deliver his remarks. This made eating six meals a day much easier on the waistline. But still I've had to practice self-control on the campaign trail because it can get out of hand pretty easily.

But from now until November 6th, we'll be on the serious campaign trail. I'm looking forward to it. It's something I have never done in my 15 years at my network. I'm looking forward to the experience but also to be able to cross it off my list. I've been home for almost three weeks now which has been completely awesome, don't get me wrong because I absolutely LOVE seeing my awesome hubby! But I have a feeling that will be the last three week stretch at home over the next couple of months!

I'll try to keep up with the blog from the road but I don't want to make any promises!! Life will be all about hustling and bustling for the next 70 days!