President’s Spotlight: Road Trip with 3 Past Presidents By: Armando Lopez
Day 1: Houston to Memphis. I would meet the Golden Girls at the home of Betty Davidson. Lisa was already there, and Cheryl was being dropped off by her husband. He said he would pray for me and wished me the best of luck. I guess the prayers worked. Of course, I was surprised by the cougar shirts, and we had to take a picture. We loaded up my SUV and the First stop in the morning, STARBUCKS! Now let me start by saying the day before the trip, to be a nice guy, I had my car washed, vacuumed, and detailed. Now back to present day, we all get our drinks and guess what happened? You guessed it, spilled Starbucks. Well, no need crying over spilled milk, or in this case, a protein drink. I was prepared, we cleaned, and hit the road. For people reading this not from Houston, let me just say that as a Houstonian, I still made two wrong turns and got on wrong highways… even with GPS directing me. So, we are on the wrong highway heading east bound to Memphis, what song do you play? Well of course you put on Smokey and The Bandit’s theme song, “East Bound and Down” and once we are on the right highway it was smooth traveling. Well, we had to make our first stop for a restroom break at some store off 59. Betty bought us all a lotto ticket and we all lost except… you guessed it, Betty. Man, she is so lucky! Anyway, we hit the road and made a stop for lunch at a small café in Carthage, TX. 4.7 rating on Google, it had to be good, right? Well of course. Food was delicious, but the best part was when a lady stopped by the table and started talking about a black cougar that scared her dog and chased it down by the Italian restaurant and we just continued to shake our heads like we lived there and knew about all the landmarks. We all laughed about it. We packed up our food (because it was too much to eat) and waited for Cheryl to get her dessert. Cheryl, if you are reading this, you knew this was
As part of the continuing President’s Spotlight series, I had the opportunity to go on an adventure with three Past NADOA Presidents. Let me set the scene for you. We are meeting in a secret location for the 1 st Quarter NADOA Board Meeting and NADOA Institute Meeting and someone (me) happened to mention that I enjoy road trips and that I would probably be road tripping it down to Louisville, Kentucky for the next NADOA Board and Institute Meeting in June. I turned to Lisa Buffaloe (“Lisa”), Cheryl Hampton (“Cheryl”), and Betty Davidson (“Betty”) and said, “Hey, y’all should join me, it will be a lot of fun.” They agreed and thought it would be fun. People called me crazy and wished me luck. Why? It would be fun, right? Me plus three crazy fun ladies. I didn’t see an issue. Let me tell you… IT WAS FUN! It would be 4 days (2 days going, and 2 days coming back) of the best laughs.
Leading up to the trip, I was telling people that I would be driving the “Golden Girls”. I even had my shirt ready, “Cougar bait. Here kitty kitty kitty”. Well let me tell you my surprise when I arrived in my shirt and the ladies had already purchased their own shirts. I knew this was going to be the best trip ever!
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N at i onal A ssociation of D i v i s i on O rder A nalys t s
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