Today, we’re going to talk about how to handle questions and responses and responses in interviews live. And I’ve got two guests joining us. One is from Milwaukee. Those of you who were at the Women in Travel Summit might be familiar with Kristin Settle. She’s going to be joining us very shortly. And just a quick word of warning, when the guests join us on the call, there is no way for me to mute them or moderate when they come in and out of the call.
When they dial in, they’ll just be there suddenly. So, I might be in the middle of saying something, and then we’ll magically be joined by somebody else. So, just be prepared for that. So, today, we’re going to talk about — first, we’re going to go over just very quickly some of the best practices for interview calls. And I’m going to explain to you what the topics for the calls today are.
I’ve proposed kind of sample fake stories that I would be doing about these estimations for each of our guests today, and they know that these are samples. So, it’s not necessarily a story that I’m actually doing, but I might actually go them in the future. But just for the purpose of this call, I’ve meshed story ideas to specific market. And then we’re going to have Kristin, who is from Milwaukee. And then we will have Stephen from Travel Lane County, which is around Eugene, which is south of Portland, Oregon.
That’s who’s going to be joining us. Just to quickly recap, at its core, an interview is a conversation. It’s a question and listening to the answer.
It’s not about having specific questions that you know that you want to ask, so much as building trust and then through that trust, gaining the information that you need to accomplish your goal, which is creating an interesting piece for your readers. And so, in that main background on the destination and the story that you want to tell, it’s much more important, in terms of preparing for your interview, than spending time formulating specific questions.
And in terms of questions, a couple of my favorites are the layman approach, or as I like to call it, if somebody didn’t know about this, what’s the most important thing that they would need to know. And so, I’m going to do that with one of our guests for you today. And again, in an interview, it’s not so much about the questions as much as the interaction because that is how you’re going to get the best quotes because the point of an interview is not just to get information. You can find that online.
But it’s to get quotes in particular. And you accomplish that by not overloading the interviewee with questions and interrupting what they’re going to say. And my favorite question to wrap up with is always, “What else that we haven’t talked about would somebody who wants to know about this topic need to know?” So, today, when Kristin dials into the call, I think that might be her. Kristin, are you there?
Kristin Settle: I am.
Gabi Logan: Oh, brilliant. You came in right when I was talking. So, pretend you didn’t hear this, and we’ll start our actual interview in one second. So, for the call with Kristin, I’m — this is a place that I’ve been, as I’ve mentioned, and we’re going to be talking about places. Some of which I have been, and some of which I haven’t.
And this is for an article that would be a high-level overview of the destination with a specific angle. In this case, the Maker Movement in Milwaukee for something like American Way, which has a section which is a trend piece around food on a specific destination. So, Kristin is here. So, let’s go ahead and get started. Kristin, thanks so much for joining us today.
Kristin Settle: Thanks for having me.
Gabi Logan: And I realize that I didn’t mention this in too much detail in our email setting up this call, but the piece that I’m discussing today will be sort of a high-level overview in brief, so about 350, 450 words about, as I mentioned, the Maker Movement in the food scene in Milwaukee and how visitors can take advantage of it.
Kristin Settle: Great.
Gabi Logan: So, to start, I’d love for you to tell me, as I mentioned in the email, a little bit about how this got started. I’ve been there, and I’ve visited some of these places, but what’s the timeline? When did you start to see this shift to the small craft-oriented food businesses?
Kristin Settle: Well, the truth is that Milwaukee has been a major city since before it was founded as a city. Our first settlers came with their knowledge of how to brew good beer from Germany. They came with their knowledge of how to tan hides. They came with the field working knowledge. So, we’ve always been a city of makers. It’s just evolved over time from these large-scale makers. Now, we’re back to small-scale. It’s almost been a pendulum.
So, even the Miller Brewing Company was a small brewing company at one point before it became the conglomerate that it is now. And we see the revival of the craft brewers again to kind of show you that we’ve kind of hit the other end of that bell curve. So, it’s really interesting to see how makers in Milwaukee have shaped the city and are continuing to do so now.
Gabi Logan: And I love that you just said about how it’s interesting to see how they’re continuing to shape the city. I know when I was there, we visited I believe Walker’s Point. Is that the right name of the neighborhood that’s kind of up and coming?
Kristi Settle: Yup, it is.
Gabi Logan: Yeah. And so, as you were just saying how these craft companies are shaping the landscape of the city, what are some areas, Walker’s Point or otherwise, that have had a revitalization because of these small businesses?
Kristi Settle: I think most of Milwaukee’s neighborhood had seen that. So, Milwaukee South is a rather large city in terms of square miles and population, but it’s known as the city of neighborhoods. So, often times, we locals refer to different districts of the city by their neighborhood. So, the one you’re referring to now is Walker’s Point. And that is just south of downtown. It is adjacent to the main heart of downtown.
And I would say maybe 15, 20 years ago, it was a rather desolate place. It was home to a lot of factories, but not a lot of homes, or people, or small companies. And about 10 years or so ago, people started moving back to that area and investing in the city. And one of the biggest investors in Walker’s Point is a chef named Dave Swanson. And he is at a James Beard Chef, and he opened Braise Restaurant.
And he really started this restaurant-supported agriculture program here in Milwaukee. And that then launched dozens of other businesses who benefit from that. And Dave really hasn’t much more than a farm-to-table approach. His approach is really rooftop to the table. So, he grows a lot of his own vegetables and herbs on the roof of the restaurant. He holds his culinary classes in the restaurant. You can go up to the roof, and you pick your own veggies and herbs that you might need for the recipe.
He really tries to source everything within 50 miles of Milwaukee, which is actually pretty easy to do, seeing as we’re not that far away from some fantastic farmland. And then I think what’s more important is that he reached out to other local restaurants and other local purveyors who were in town and said, “Let’s work together.” And because of Braise’s efforts, we had a seen a huge surge in restaurants, in craft breweries, and in locally-owned stores in Walker’s Point all within like a one-mile walk of the Braise Restaurant.
So, the two to come to top of mind is a place called Purple Door Ice Cream, which was started in 2009, I believe, by a husband and wife with a couple small children, and they wanted to own an ice cream shop. They had actually talked about it on their very first date together that they were going to own an ice cream.
Gabi Logan: Oh, that’s so sweet.
Kristin Settle: Yeah, and then they got married, and had a baby, and decided that was a perfect time to start your own business.
Gabi Logan: Of course.
Kristin Settle: But they opened up Purple Door Ice Cream. Now, Purple Door uses the milk that comes from the Milwaukee County Zoo —
Gabi Logan: Oh my God.
Kristin Settle: — which is five miles outside of downtown. And the Milwaukee County Zoo has the only working dairy farm inside of Milwaukee County. And they had about, I’d say, two dozen, three dozen cows there. So, it’s not very big, the dairy farm, because the zoo is rather large. But the dairy farm isn’t very big. But Purple Door uses that milk to make their ice cream. Purple Door also reaches out to other areas, stores, and purveyors to help get ingredients for their ice cream.
So, for example, just down the street from Purple Door is a place called Clock Shadow Creamery, which is the only urban dairy in Milwaukee as well. Clock Shadow Creamery also uses the milk from the Milwaukee County Zoo. They make a fantastic cheese called Quark, which is somewhere between a cream cheese and a goat cheese. So, it’s tangy, and it has a fantastic texture to it. Well, Purple Door uses the Quark cheese from Clock Shadow in an ice cream flavor called Mint Quark.
Gabi Logan: Okay. And the mint from Braise?
Kristin Settle: Yeah, the mint is from Braise —
Gabi Logan: Oh my God.
Kristin Settle: — and from other growers around the area as well as Purple Door grows a lot of their own stuff. But then the Quark comes from Clock Shadow. And the same thing, any Quark that Braise uses in its restaurant also comes from Clock Shadow. And then going up the street from Purple Door a little bit more is Central Standard Distillery and Great Lakes Distillery. And so, at Great Lakes Distillery, they brew something called Kinnickinnic Whiskey. Kinnickinnic is one of the rivers that runs through Milwaukee. And so, Purple Door ice cream uses the Kinnickinnic Whiskey in its Whiskey ice cream.
And so, everybody is benefiting from each other and using each other’s resources to really revitalize this area. And there’s been a huge growth in the neighborhood. People moving back to the area kind of things, supermarkets being put in, but then also the small mom and pop shops of creameries, breweries, distilleries, James Beard Restaurants. We have two James Beard Restaurants that are right across the street from each other in Walker’s Point. And it’s just really cool to see because they’re so different, but the chefs are best friends, which is really great.
Gabi Logan: And is that Braise and something else?
Kristin Settle: Yeah, it’s Braise and a place called Circa 1880.
Gabi Logan: Oh, right.
Kristin Settle: — which serves French food, and it’s owned by Chef Thomas Hawk.
Gabi Logan: And I just want to expand about what you were saying about how they play off of each other, and that has really allowed for growth in the neighborhood. Are there — what are the benefits apart from sort of the goodwill that these companies have seen from working together? Do they cross-promote to their customers? Do they find some savings? For the companies, what is the benefit, aside from the values? I know you’d mentioned the restaurant agriculture program. Is that kind of like a shared buying program?
Kristin Settle: It is. It’s almost — it would be like some sort of community supported agriculture program that you have in a lot of cities, but here, it’s a restaurant supporting agriculture program. And they do, they benefit that way. They cross-promote each other all the time. I see at Purple Door Ice Cream that it says Kinnickinnic Whiskey from Great Lakes Distillery. You’ll see that it says — that the beer that is in their Beer and Pretzels Ice Cream comes from the Milwaukee Brewing Company. They’ll host free festivals together. I know that we just had Garlic Fest here.
Gabi Logan: That was my very next question, was your festival. Thanks, yeah.
Kristin Settle: Yeah. So, we had just had Garlic Fest here in Milwaukee in Walker’s Point outside of Braise. So, they all come together and promote each other. They will co-host dinners together, and events, and it’s really great because, let’s say, for example, you’re trying to get a reservation at Braise, or at another great place called Morel, which is down the street, or Movida, and they can’t fit you in, they’ll recommend another place. So, there’s not the same competition that you would normally see. Everybody kind of treats each other like family because we recognize that a rising tide lifts all boats.
Gabi Logan: And we’ve been talking a lot about food, and you mentioned beer and the whiskey as well. And I was actually really impressed. Obviously, everyone thinks of Milwaukee as a beer city, and I know that there’s a lot of craft beer there, but I was really impressed by the distillery scene as well. And especially I visited Bittercube Bitters, which is co-located with both the distillery and the brewery. So, how are these kinds of collaborations working within the more drinkable scene?
Kristin Settle: It’s been working much the same way as anything else. So, a lot of actually the breweries at the distilleries are both cross promoting and working together to create flavors. So, Bittercube is a great example. It started in 2009 by a couple friends. And they will sell their bitters to ice cream shops. They will sell their bitters to distilleries to create specialty cocktails. They’ll sell them to restaurants.
They’ll partner actually with Lakefront Brewery, or The Milwaukee Brewery Company to create and make a special blend. So, everybody is really working off of the talent that we already have here in Milwaukee. I think that that makes Milwaukee really great; this huge maker, history, and sense of pride and ownership that we have instilled in us to stay local, keep it local, and use the local resources that we have.
Gabi Logan: And I know you talked about how Dave from Braise had kind of supported the growth of this culture, but is there an official incubator program of any kind? How do new businesses that are starting today, how do they make use of these other resources?
Kristin Settle: I don’t think that there’s a specific incubator program for the restaurants, but everybody is so interconnected. The chefs know each other so well, that if you were to come to Milwaukee to try to break in, they would help. They make themselves available. They have conversations about suggestions or holes that there might be, or if you wanted to come in and start a pizza place, they might recommend, “Hey, talk to Clock Shadow about their mozzarella, or their quark, or whatever it happens to be.”
So, it’s a really good-natured place to be. Everyone really nurtures this maker culture that we have, and we actually have two maker fairs in Milwaukee each year. One is called Maker Fair, and the other one is called Hover Craft. And it’s just a group of people who get together because they’re all makers and craftsmen who want to learn from each other, to showcase each other’s hobbies, to just really build on that creativity and that resourcefulness.
Gabi Logan: Yeah. As we’re talking about this, I see that this would also be a great piece for Plate, which is more of a restaurant industry trade publication. So, I’m going to look into that a little bit more and talk to you about that later as well. So, we had talked briefly about festivals, but I just wanted to pivot over. And obviously, you guys have one of the — I think it’s the largest festival in the world. Is that right? Summerfest?
Kristin Settle: Summerfest is the world’s largest music festival. It opened yesterday, and it runs through July 9th, and it celebrates the 50th anniversary this year. It’s been around since 1967. It is iconic. It is everything that is wonderful about Milwaukee; craft food, craft beer, locals, visitors. It sits on 76 permanent acres on Milwaukee’s lakefronts. You get stunning views of the lake wherever you go. It has 11 permanent stages. And the acts that come are some of the best in the world, and you can see them for free.
It’s a $20 to get in, if you have to pay for a ticket, but there’s so many freebee promotions, that I don’t know anybody who pays full price for a ticket anymore. But the acts that — you could just walk to side cages and see people like Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Pink, The BoDeans, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Ludacris, I mean, it just goes on and on.
Gabi Logan: So, how does that — obviously, I’m sure you serve the local food, but are there any kind of additional things that are happening like these chef dinners that you were talking about? How does the food scene work into Summerfest?
Kristin Settle: A lot of the food that is served at Summerfest is all locally owned. Like, you’re not going to find a McDonald’s stand on the Summerfest ground. It’s all locally-owned restaurants that are serving traditional Milwaukee favorites like the fried cheese curds, or fish fries, and then some of them get a little bit more creative on a stick.
Gabi Logan: Everything is on a stick these days.
Kristin Settle: Yeah, everything is on a stick these days. But yeah, and the beer is local, so it’s really nice. It’s a true Milwaukee experience. And that really — we consider Summerfest almost like the kickoff of the festival season, but it’s actually the third or fourth that we have in the summer. We have PrideFest in the beginning of summer.
We have Polish Fest at the beginning of summer, and then we through all of our ethnic festivals; Festa Italiana, German Fest, Irish Fest, which is the world’s largest Celtic festival. We have the Wisconsin State Fair. We have Mexican Fiesta. We have Bastille Days. We have Indian Summer. It just goes on, and on, and on. It’s just in the summer months. We have 30 festivals just in the 100 days of summer.
Gabi Logan: Yeah. And I was going to say I know that Milwaukee is kind of known for certain immigrant, I guess, population, but you do have quite a few. I was really intrigued to find out about the Hispanic population in Walker’s Point and the history there. And I think when you were talking about the festivals, it really highlighted something that I’ve noticed when I’ve been to Milwaukee, which is that it’s not what you think.
There’s so much more going on. And so, just to kind of close out, I’d love for you to tell me your kind of one takeaway that you would want somebody who hasn’t been to Milwaukee and is thinking about a trip. What would you really like them to know?
Kristin Settle: I think I want them to know that Milwaukee is going to surprise them. That whatever impression they have of Milwaukee or whatever lack of impression that they have, they need to see it for themselves. We hear time and again from leisure tourists, from convention goers, from parents of university students, that they had no idea that they had no idea Milwaukee was so… And it’s not just the summer months.
We are a 12-months destination, and our data, our tourism data, shows that people are coming here year-round for what we have going on. So, if you’ve never been to Milwaukee before, I promise you that you are going to be shocked by what you see. There is something fun to do, beautiful to see, delicious to eat. It goes on, and on, and on. I mean, and we haven’t even touched the lakefront, all of our museums, our world class theatre. There’s 100,000 university students in Milwaukee. I mean, this is just — this is a cool place to be.
Gabi Logan: Yeah. And I think that that definitely shows in the food scene, which is why I’m very excited to highlight it to sort of intro people into that side of Milwaukee. So, I’m so glad that you were able to join me today. I knew Summerfest was coming, and I had a feeling it was right now, and I didn’t check the dates, but I’m very happy that we were able to make the timing work today, and give my thanks to Emily for that as well.
Kristin Settle: Yeah, I will do that. And if you need any more information about Milwaukee, of course, our website is VisitMilwaukee.org.
Gabi Logan: Awesome. Thank you so much, Kristin, and have a great holiday weekend as well.
Kristin Settle: Thanks, you too.
Gabi Logan: Bye-bye.
Kristin Settle: Bye.
Gabi Logan: Okay, guys. So, that was Kristin Settle from Visit Milwaukee. And in just a minute, we’re going to have Stephen join us from Travel Lane County. And, as I mentioned, that is going to be the area around Eugene. It’s south of Portland. And I’m going to ask him a little bit to expand on what he covers in terms of the geographic area as well. Stephen, are you with us already?
Stephen: Yeah. Hey, there, Gabi. Just hopped on. How’s it going?
Gabi Logan: Oh, hi. Great. Good. Okay, just hold one second. You just came one minute early. I was just transitioning over from Kristin’s call. So, you’re going to hear me tell our listeners what you and I are about to talk about, but just put on ear muffs for one moment.
Stephen: You got it.
Gabi Logan: So, I met Stephen at a tourism conference, the Travel and Words Conference in the Northwestern part of the country, if any of you guys were there. And so, I’ve spoken with him before, and we talked about a particular trip that I wanted to do, but I haven’t been to his destination. So, this is going to be a different type of interview than what I did with Kristin where I know Milwaukee. I’ve been there several times.
I’m familiar with the major attractions. And as a result, and I do get a lot of questions from you guys about this. How do you do an interview before a trip, or for a place that you haven’t been? So, that’s what we’re going to be highlighting here. And the type of story that I’m going to be talking to Stephen about is I do, as I mentioned, have a trip coming up, but the specific story that I want to ask him about in this interview is for an audience who would be coming from Portland.
Either they’re based there, or they might be coming in to experience Portland in the food scene, but want to also go out and do some active things in the greater area. What are some great day trips or weekend trips that they can add on, or like I said, for people who live in Portland to come down? So, Stephen, thanks so much for joining us and for making the timing work. I really appreciate it.
Stephen: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, thanks for the awesome intro there. Happy to talk about this destination a little bit and some day trip ideas.
Gabi Logan: Yeah. So, I’d love for you to refresh me because I know we talked about it, and you had a very excellent map with you. So, I can visualize kind of in my head the area that we’re talking about, but I just want to make sure, as I’m asking you questions, I have the right geographic boundary. So, what do you encompass?
Stephen: Absolutely. Yeah. So, we’re here with Lane County. We cover everything from Eugene, which is just about two hours south of Portland on I-5 going East. We go up into the Cascades Mountain Range. So, that convers the McKenzie River area just south of the Oakridge area that kind of goes just up to the mountain pass that you would go over to visit Bend.
Gabi Logan: Okay, okay.
Stephen: We’re just west of that. And then going west from Eugene, we go all the way over into the Oregon Coast covering Florence, and then up to almost to Yachats, and just a little bit south of Florence too in the Dunes City area. So, it’s kind of we’re at the southern tip of the Willamette Valley. We’ve got the Oregon Cascades, and we also have a good chunk of the Oregon Coast in our area too.
Gabi Logan: I know. That’s the thing, is you just have everything. You have all the good stuff, don’t you?
Stephen: Oh, a lot of different kinds of environments to see and a lot of good food to check out for sure.
Gabi Logan: Yeah. And so, I didn’t specifically put this in my email when we were talking about the angles, but I assume that you guys do have a bit of the Willamette line country area, and also some of the Oregon Coastlines as well.
Stephen: Absolutely. Yeah. Definitely with the South Willamette Valley, we’ve got the South Willamette Wineries Association. And there are about 23 different wineries to see down here just outside of Eugene. There’s a little wine trail that we like to call the Territorial Wine Trail because it’s on the Territorial Highway. It’s just west of Eugene.
Gabi Logan: Oh, okay.
Stephen: Yeah. So, it kind of makes for a nice tour kind of out in the country, but you can also come into Eugene and get a cool taste of some of the urban wineries we have there.
Gabi Logan: Oh, okay. And why is it the Territorial Highway? Where does that name come from?
Stephen: You know, I can’t recall exactly why they named it. I know it relates a little bit to the folks that first came in on wagons in terms of like that was the highway that they took
Gabi Logan: Right.
Stephen: — to get through the valley there. But yeah, they’ve got — it’s now dotted kind of as Wine Country. So, there are quite a few different spots to visit through that trip. And it’s a pretty quick drive too, about 45 minutes.
Gabi Logan: Oh, okay.
Stephen: Yeah.
Gabi Logan: Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, because that was my next question because I know with — any time there’s a wine Trail, you get into the driving issue, and particularly if people are coming down from the city either because they’ve come in from abroad and they’ve flown in to Portland, or if they just live in Portland and don’t own a car. What are some of the transit options for people who want to do whether it’s the wine trail, or get out to the cascades, or something like that?
Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. One of the ways, we like to talk about it a lot, is Eugene has its own airport. And so, it’s a popular fly in, fly out destination for folks that are starting in Portland, maybe flying into Portland and then doing some of the wineries that you’ll see in like [inaudible] Valley area, some of the Northern Valley wineries. And from there, they can actually drive down highway 99 for a pretty cool kind of scenic view of the Willamette Valley, and you’ll end up at the Territorial Highway.
It’s pretty easy to make that link. Then from there, you can kind of check out a few of the South Willamette wineries and fly out of the Eugene Airport, if you wanted. So, it makes kind of a nice fly in, fly out. We also have Amtrak in Eugene. So, that’s another popular way for folks to kind of take the train down, and then you’ll be riding the hub of the city. You can from there take your bike, or arrange different tours with some of the different wine tour companies we have like Cork and Barrel is a popular one.
Gabi Logan: Right. I remember you had mentioned that one to me. And in terms of the wine tours, are there any of note that are particularly unusual? Like I only just thought of this, but like is there a cannabis and wine tour? Is there something specific either to your area, or just a really interesting provider?
Stephen: Yeah. No cannabis and wine tours yet that I know of.
Gabi Logan: I’m sure it’s coming.
Stephen: I bet so. One that we like to talk about a lot is you get some really interesting tours from the folks at King Estate. They’re the biggest producer of Pinot gris in the nation. And they also work as service biodynamic.
Gabi Logan: Oh, great. Oh, wow.
Stephen: Got some big news from those guys. So, I’ve done a couple…
Gabi Logan: I’m making that in big, bold for myself because I want to make sure to check that out when I’m down there because biodynamic wine is kind of starting to have a moment, but people for a long time just thought it smelled weird. Have you ever noticed that biodynamic wine smells kind of like rotten eggs or something?
Stephen: A little different, yeah.
Gabi Logan: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s cool. Okay. So, they have their own tours of the property, or do they also partner with other wineries?
Stephen: Yeah, of the property itself, but they do — the nice thing about our [inaudible] wineries is that they do work together pretty well. So, a lot of the tour companies will put together group tours, and the ones on the Territorial Highway down here are fairly close together. So, it makes it pretty easy to kind of make your own little tour out of it, but also if you wanted to get the whole behind the scenes kind of look, it’s pretty easy to get into some of the smaller shops and get a tour from the folks that own it.
Gabi Logan: Okay, great. And so, are there ones in particular that are sort of reservation only? So, that if you want to visit these places, they’re great, but you need to make sure to call in advance?
Stephen: You know, most of them are wide open.
Gabi Logan: Okay, great.
Stephen: I can’t think of any that in terms of visiting the wineries — some of the smaller ones, in terms of getting tours from those guys, you definitely want to check in on. But I know King Estate does actually tours on the hour on the weekend. So, they’re fairly accommodating.
Gabi Logan: And so, if you’re coming down and you want to do the wine trail, what are the food options? And I imagine some of the larger wineries might have restaurants, or otherwise, are there other things out there to check out?
Stephen: Absolutely, yeah. King Estate has a wonderful restaurant down there. So, that’s a good one that we kind of like to hook as like if you’re doing a tour, maybe you end there and get dinner before you head back to town. Also, a great spot for lunch. But a lot of the wineries are actually doing what some of the brewers are doing with different food carts.
Gabi Logan: Oh, great.
Stephen. And so, there are a few in the north part of the Territorial Highway and a couple in the south part as well that will have regular hours with food carts now. But they’re all so close to town, that we also like to talk about different pairings that you can make. We talked a little bit about our Pinot Bingo Program, which is kind of a fun way to explore Wine Country down here and also earn prices by getting stamps at the wineries.
On that program, there are also a couple of pairing stamps that will earn you like additional bingo card slots. So, they kind of lay the few different restaurants that are really, really friendly in terms of offering different wines that pair well with the food, so it’s good.
Gabi Logan: So, let’s kind of shift. I guess maybe we’ll do coast, and then we’ll go to the mountains. So, in terms of the coast outside of the wine country, what’s a good sort of compact day trip or weekend trip that you would say really highlights the offerings over there?
Stephen: Absolutely. Yeah, and Florence is kind of a unique area of the coast because we have the Oregon Dunes National Recreation area there, which has dozens of miles of massive dunes to check out. And so, it’s kind of a unique stop because you can visit Florence’s Old Town, which is a pretty cute, little downtown area that’s nestled right up next to the Siuslaw River.
And so, that gives you a really good, little taste of some boutique kind of coastal shopping with some really nice restaurants, so you can get a nice breakfast, lunch, or dinner there. From there, you can go just south of Florence on 101 and experience some of the dunes. On the dunes themselves, there’s sand dune buggies that are out there.
Gabi Logan: Oh, great.
Stephen: You can get some tours from those guys, and they’re pretty fast and pretty wild. I went on one.
Gabi Logan: Dress appropriately.
Stephen: Yeah, get ready for a little bit of sand. The sandboarding is actually a big part of what’s going on in Florence. People know about sandboarding, but it is kind of a cool sport that’s not quite big mainstream yet.
Gabi Logan: And who does that really appeal to? Who is the main audience for that right now?
Stephen: Yeah, it’s surprising because it really does reach a lot of different age ranges. It’s a very friendly thing to pick up and try. You’re on a board, and you kind of have a little bit of wax that you wax the bottom of the board with, but depending on how comfortable you feel with it, you can take all sorts of different kinds of hills with it in terms of inside of the dunes. But the shop over there called Sand Master Park is — I believe it’s the first sandboarding park in the world.
Gabi Logan: Oh, okay.
Stephen: The gentleman that owns it, Lon Beale, is the godfather of the sport. And so, it’s a pretty unique spot to be able to kind of go in, take the family. Now, you can get lessons from like world champions that works in this park here. And then from there, you can rent a board and go south. They have their own dunes that are kind of in the back of the facility, but if you wanted to, you could rent a board for longer, and then just go explore the dunes just south of Florence like all day.
Gabi Logan: That’s very cool.
Stephen: And you can camp, or you can stay in Old Town. There are a lot of really great hotel options around the Florence area there. But that’s kind of like in the around downtown kind of an area. From there, you can also go north on highway 101, and one of my favorite stretches of the coast in terms of drives, you get that really cool, rocky Oregon coastline, right.
And there are a couple of attractions that are really cool to check out along there like the Sea Lion Caves, which is kind of an outdoor stop. Largest natural sea cave formation in the U.S. That’s a pretty cool and interesting thing you can see. Just north of that, there’s the Heceta Head Lighthouse too, which is the most photographed lighthouse in Oregon, reportedly, the B & B that’s attached to it is haunted.
Gabi Logan: Oh, yeah. I had heard that it was romantic. So, apparently, I heard…
Stephen: It’s very romantic. It’s very romantic. The ghost is apparently one of the — a wife of one of the lighthouse keepers there.
Gabi Logan: Oh, really?
Stephen: Kind of interesting. Yeah, fun, little hook. But it is a beautiful property. The lighthouse keepers — it’s kind of just down a little hike from the lighthouse there, and it is gorgeous, the five-bedroom house. But it is where the lighthouse keepers used to stay before electricity was in the area, and they would have to go relight the lighthouse every — I think it was every four hours. So, it definitely [inaudible]. But now, it’s an amazing place to visit and to hike there. There are a couple different hikes that you can go up to the lighthouse and around the back of the lighthouse.
So, really scenic, cool viewpoints up there. And if you kept going north on 101, you would find like Devil’s Churn, which is a really amazing rock formation that the water has — it’s flown — it’s kind of flowing inward, and it’s created a little channel that has the water kind of stirring around. And just above that is the Cape Perpetua lookout, which is an amazing spot to kind of get above all the trees and get a really cool view of the Siuslaw National Forest and pretty much the south coastline. So, a lot of really cool sites.
Gabi Logan: The perfect photo stop basically, right?
Stephen: It’s amazing, yeah. So, it’s kind of just a snapshot of like some of the things up in the coast. We also have the Siuslaw River that flows inland from there. And there’s a lot of really great like fishing opportunities there. The other thing that Florence has that I think a lot of people kind of forget about is all of the flatwater lakes that are around the area. There are seven that easy to kayak and kind of float on. And so, it makes it kind of interesting. On one side of 101, you’ve got the ocean. On the other side, you have these lakes that are really like close to town. So, interesting recreation opportunities.
Gabi Logan: And I know actually the person I know who had stayed at the lighthouse had gone in the winter, and that’s a very different experience. How much in terms of the kayaking and the sandboarding, are these things all year round?
Stephen: Yeah. It is pretty easy to do those sports all year round. The challenge with sandboarding is that if the sand is really wet, then it works, and if the sand is really dry, it works. In between, it’s a little bit more challenging, but they have developed like a dry sand wax and a wet sand wax. That way, you kind of have some options. But we’ve gone out even if it’s kind of misted over a little bit, and it makes it a little challenging to get out there, but it’s still — you can still ride the dunes all right. You just won’t get quite as fast.
Gabi Logan: That’s a great tip. Thank you for that. So, also in terms of being very different in the different seasons is the mountains. And so, I know we had talked a little bit about the ski opportunities there, but I’d love to kind of hear season by season what are the highlights of your parts of the cascade in terms of activities and destinations.
Stephen: Absolutely. Yeah, in spring and summertime, we like to talk about some of the waterfalls that you can see out in the cascade. So, it kind of frames them a little bit differently. In the spring and summer, you get a lot of the fresh runoff. They can be river flows from an aquifer basin, and there is no snow melt that’s also in that, but since there’s a basin, it holds like seven years of water underground.
You know that the waterfalls are going to be flowing pretty well, and then when you add snow melt on top of that, it can be pretty amazing in terms of the melt in the spring. So, we have a series of waterfalls to check out that are really amazing in that spring and summertime, but also in the fall you get some really unique views with those. We have the fall foliage along Route 126 and up into that area. It has a lot of Vine Maples with it.
So, when those start to change color, it’s really interesting because you get the waterfall up against the lush green and the Douglas National [inaudible], the Doug-firs that are in Willamette National Forest. And those are such like a vibrant green, but right in front or behind those, you’ll have those Vine Maples turning like yellow, bright orange, a little red in there. And so, it makes for a really interesting kind of fall foliage experience up there.
Gabi Logan: Yeah, because usually, it’s kinds of one or the other, but you can’t get both in the same viewpoint.
Stephen: Right. Yeah, it’s kind of an interesting view to see that mixture like that.
Gabi Logan: And did you say they’re called Vine Maples, like grape vine?
Stephen: Yeah, yeah, vine maples
Gabi Logan: Okay, great.
Stephen: — are the popular ones that are kind of — they actually run all the way from parts of the coast along 126. As you come inward, that’s kind of the main highway that connects all the way from the coast through Eugene and Springfield and into the cascades region there.
Gabi Logan: Okay, cool.
Stephen: Along that route, you’ll see a lot of Vine Maples popping. But yeah, a lot of the hikes, you know, we’ve got waterfall hikes that are really popular during that time. But also fishing in the McKenzie River area especially, it’s phenomenal. The wooden drift boats that are actually McKenzie River drift boats developed for the river.
Gabi Logan: Oh, wow. And is that because of the current, or the depth? Why do they need a specific boat for that river?
Stephen: Yeah, there’s the speed of the flow kind of picks up quickly and kind of slows down in parts. And so, they wanted a boat that would kind of float a little bit differently and really be able to navigate rocks well. And so, a lot of the guides that are on the river actually have relations to folks that developed the boats.
Gabi Logan: Oh, wow.
Stephen: That’s the really cool way to see the river, like pairing up with different guides that we have. They’re all so knowledgeable, and it’s such an interesting experience to ride with them because they can just manipulate the boat like no big deal, you know, just little tweaks with the paddles and things. It’s always amazing to see how they can handle that. But there are also a lot of really amazing fly fishing opportunities, and some steelhead and salmon. And there’s a lot of really cool ways to — especially to learn how to do fly fishing too. I mean…
Gabi Logan: That was actually what I was going to ask you. Yeah, if you have never done it, and you say, “Well, this is the area,” what are some good opportunities to learn?
Stephen: Yeah, I mean, that was me. I’d never — I’ve always kind of wanted to do fly fishing, but I never learned. So, I actually was out on like a photoshoot because we were going to get some photos of folks doing fly fishing, and so I was going to be one of those people.
Stephen: Yeah. And so, they kind of handed me the bull, and I said, “All right. I’ve caught fish before, but I hadn’t fly fished,” and it was so easy to learn from some of the guides on — you know, they always talk about the wrist control a little bit with fly fishing. So, they just gave me a couple of tips, and watched my catch, and soon enough, I was like catching like no problem.
Gabi Logan: Oh, wow.
Stephen: It was really cool to kind of learn from the pros. I mean, these guys really know what they’re doing. So, it’s really cool to just get little tips that make a big difference. It made me feel like I knew a little bit like what I was doing.
Gabi Logan: Yeah, yeah.
Stephen: So, it was kind of nice. But the McKenzie has a lot of spots where you can kind of fish on the bank, but out in the boat, like when you’re out in the river, it’s just a different experience. It’s fresh-smelling, and it’s great.
Gabi Logan: Oh, okay.
Stephen: There’s also — in terms of like water activities up there, rafting is a popular activity. The rapids I believe go up to class three on the McKenzie. So, it’s not too intense. You still get thrown around a little bit, but it’s not enough to be a little intimidating. And the experience from up river to like the middle part and kind of like a little bit lower McKenzie is really cool. It’s really different. Like the kind of flow up river is pretty quick. The water is like really, really cold because it’s coming straight out of that aquifer basin, and the air is even cleaner than it is down river because it’s just fresh.
And so, it’s kind of a different experience. And then once you start to get down river, it slows down a little bit. It’s a little bit more — still, you’re going over some rapids and some waves, but the river is just a little bit bigger in parts. And so, that was kind of my experience with it. It’s just a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more of a chance for you to take in the scenery, whereas up river, you’re moving really quickly, everything is really…
Gabi Logan: More adventure.
Stephen: Yeah, a little bit — it’s a little bit more fun, but there are a lot of parts in the middle and the lower part of the McKenzie that like to rock the boat pretty well. So, some of those rapids were pretty fun to face. But yeah, those are some of the summer and springtime activities up there. There are also some hot springs to check out.
Gabi Logan: Oh, right, okay.
Stephen: Pretty cool, little hot spring spots up there. Belknap is a good one where they have — it’s actually an established resort.
Gabi Logan: And can you go as a day visitor, or do you have to stay over?
Stephen: Yeah, you can go in and just kind of hop in the pool. Their hot springs there actually flow into — it’s a natural hot spring site that kind of flows into a pool that they have there. So, it’s kind of a nice kind of easy way to experience hot springs there. A lot of camping, and they do have some rooms that you can reserve there too. So, and secret gardens too, which is pretty cool.
Gabi Logan: Oh, okay. Secret how? What’s special about it?
Stephen: Well, there’s a little bit of a path you have to take to get there that kind of — it feels like you’re walking, and you are, through the forest. You’re walking through parts of the national forest up there, but I think it’s a mile, half mile. It’s not a long walk, but just from the hot springs there. It’s pretty cool. Their site is neat. It’s kind of towards the upper part of McKenzie. So, you get to see full confluence on that hike.
Gabi Logan: Okay.
Stephen: But a lot of hikes like that. I mean, the McKenzie River trail is another one to highlight. It’s…
Gabi Logan: That was my next question actually, is if you had to pick — like I know it’s going to be hard, and you’re not supposed to play favorites because you’re with the tourism board. But if you had to pic, your top three hikes for people who are just coming for a short while, so maybe not too arduous and not too long, what would you recommend?
Stephen: Yeah. Ones that we like to do. The McKenzie River Trail is really, really cool, and it’s massive. So, it’s a cool one because you can kind of hop on and hop off in a lot of different spots. It makes it pretty easy to experience. So, that’s one to check out that it’s a big stretch of the McKenzie. So, it’s pretty easy to find a leg that you want to check out, and it’s all along the river too, so it’s just gorgeous.
Along that, the Sahalie and Koosah Waterfalls are just north of kind of one of the main towns in the McKenzie area, and it’s a really cool, little loop hike. It’s only about three miles, but you can pull out there. It doesn’t need a parking. There’s a restroom, and a really cool, little information kiosk there. But from there, you can get a cool view of Sahalie Falls, which is a beautiful kind of little waterfall that shoots out from the upper McKenzie.
Gabi Logan: Okay.
Stephen: And then you can stay on that same trail and hike south about a mile and a half, and you’ll land at Koosah Falls, which is a really cool kind of a wider waterfall. So, we like to suggest that loop just because it’s an easy, little hike. And then as you’re either coming into the McKenzie, or heading back into the Willamette Valley from there, you can stop at a little camp site called Delta. And they have a really cool, little, very short, like a half a mile, nature trail.
Gabi Logan: Okay.
Stephen: And it’s a really amazing way to kind of experience a few of the old growth in the area —
Gabi Logan: Oh, I see.
Stephen: — where you can see massive trees, and it really puts you right out in the thick of the forest. So, that’s a favorite one for me because it’s just a really quick way to get a good look at that kind of an environment.
Gabi Logan: And I know you had mentioned, and this is another thing that I wanted to ask you from the seasonal level, about festivals that you guys have.
Stephen: Yeah.
Gabi Logan: Did you have some specific ones that you wanted to tell me about? I mean, I don’t have my email in front of me right now.
Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. There are a few of them that are actually coming right up. So, the Country Fair is a very popular one that folks like to talk a lot about. Really cool, kind of artsy, some good food out there. That’s actually going on next weekend.
Gabi Logan: Oh, okay.
Stephen: That’s a pretty cool one to check out for folks that, like I said, are kind of into the artsy thing. It’s a cool spot for different families. There are a lot of kid-focused activities, but also just some really cool creativity that’s going on.
Gabi Logan: And I feel like with a county fair, I immediately think of massive, like hard to park, hard to get around. What are your best tips for making the most of that?
Stephen: Totally. So, this is actually the Oregon Country Fair. Sorry. And so, it’s kind of an established totally different game from like a — because we have our Lane County Fair too, which is a great fair that’s coming right up. But the Oregon Country Fair is kind of out toward the Veneta area, which is just outside of Eugene. But it’s a very interesting, unique kind of a vibe; very artsy, very creative.
A totally different experience from other kinds of fairs. And that one — but you are right. I mean, in terms of like parking and navigating to it, one thing that I really like, what that fair has done is worked with our local transit just really well. And so, there are a lot of spots to do kind of a park and ride where you can get direct routes into the fair from there. But that’s a really fun one that’s coming right up. And another one…
Gabi Logan: And is there a way to get there from Downtown Eugene? Could you just public transit all the way?
Stephen: Yeah, absolutely.
Gabi Logan: Okay, cool.
Stephen: Yeah, the bus routes actually go from the Valley River Center, which is a little shopping mall that we have just north. And so, that’s kind of a popular park and ride spot.
Gabi Logan: Okay, okay.
Stephen: Some cool opportunities with that. And they’re actually in their 47th year this year.
Gabi Logan: Oh, wow.
Stephen: So, it’s a really established, just kind of a cool event to check out.
Gabi Logan: And how many people does it draw every year?
Stephen: Yeah. Let’s see. Boy, I’d have to check on that number. It’s a very well-attended festival, I can tell you that.
Gabi Logan: Okay, yeah.
Stephen: Yeah, people come in droves to check it out.
Gabi Logan: You know us journalists, we like numbers.
Stephen: Oh, for sure. Yeah, always happy to help with those. But yeah, it’s a special fair for sure; really different, really unique. The other one that is also in its 47th year this year is the Oregon Bach Festival, which is a really cool way to see the different arts that take place here in Eugene. It’s a really great way to kind of get a taste of the culture downtown too. It’s in its 47th year, as I said. So, the 50th year for both of these festivals is coming right up around the corner. So, it’s a cool year to kind of check both of those out and see what’s new with them.
Gabi Logan: Yeah, that’s great to know. And in terms of the one that you’re mentioning in Eugene, I know you had mentioned earlier the urban wineries. How does that differ in terms of integrating the festival with the city?
Stephen: Yeah, I think the urban wineries do a really good job on kind of plugging into a lot of these events. And so, they’re kind of featured in a lot of them as different local wines. We’re lucky that we have like some really high quality local wines. And so, you’ll definitely find them at different parts of these festivals. They’re very active in terms of how they plug in.
Gabi Logan: And in terms of if you’re just coming down, and you’re doing a Downtown Eugene trip, are there opportunities to do winery production tours as well, or mostly just tastings?
Stephen: It’s mostly tastings, but there are — like King Estate is one that offers that really great production tour. They kind of showcase the facility there, and it’s a cool way to get a behind-the-scenes look, especially at that big of an operation to really see how that works, and how you can have like that same consistency bottle after bottle, but still instill creativity into it.
Gabi Logan: Cool. So, yeah, in terms of creativity, I think that in Eugene itself there’s a lot of cool things going on that people don’t know about. But obviously, you do have a lot of great things outside of the city as well. So, for somebody who hasn’t been down there and is thinking about a trip or trying to figure out if it makes sense to include in their itinerary, what’s the one thing you would really want them to know about coming down for a visit?
Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. I think the one thing that really stands out — it’s hard because we have the whole county. But a lot of folks, when they’re doing that day trip, they’re coming down to Eugene. And I think the big thing that Eugene has is just easy-to-access outdoor adventures.
Gabi Logan: Right.
Stephen: And just that access to local food I think is pretty unique in Eugene. We have so many hikes and urban bike trails, and things like that, that are — they’re well-attended, but you won’t find trails that are just thick with people close to town.
Gabi Logan: Oh, that’s really great.
Stephen: So, you can kind of dig in and get a good outdoor experience. But I’d say the same kind of holds true to some of our culinary culture too. We have spots like WildCraft Cider Works who will be opening this new facility here. They’re opening a new tasting room here pretty soon later in the summer.
And they’re a great example of folks that are pulling from ingredients that are in Lane County and producing on these amazing like dry ciders. We have a lot of — our local restaurants like Grit that are doing weekly menus on what’s fresh in the Farmer’s Market. You’ll find a lot that really digs into the local food culture here, which I think is really cool to experience.
Gabi Logan: Awesome. Well, I’m so glad we got a chance to chat today. This is great, and I can see some perfect, little day trip itineraries and everything in here. And you’ve also given me some good ideas to dig into for my own trip. So, I will circle back with you about that because it’s not that long from now.
Stephen: It’s not. I can’t wait. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It’s great.
Gabi Logan: Yeah, I’m excited, and it’s good that we got to talk in this way beforehand as well. So, I’ll circle back with you on that, but just in brief, I think I’m going to be coming down Tuesday, and then coming back up on Thursday, but it might be I’m coming Wednesday morning and back up on Thursday, but I’ll follow up with you on that over email.
Stephen: Yeah, that sounds great. Looking forward to it.
Gabi Logan: Yeah. And thanks so much for joining us and sharing today with the group.
Stephen: Absolutely, yeah. Thank you for having, I appreciate it.
Gabi Logan: Have a great holiday. Bye, Stephen.
Stephen: You too. See you.
Gabi Logan: Okay, everybody. Oops, I didn’t switch the slide. So, there’s Stephen’s picture, so you can see Stephen who was just with us. So, all right. So, I made a couple notes, more so with Stephen than with Kristin because I was just typing very, very quickly, of things that I wanted to pull out and highlight for you guys.
So, you’ll notice that with both of them, and this is really common, especially when you’re talking to people from tourism boards, but it also happens when you’re talking to people about their own business. That you might want to be talking about a certain topic, you might have a specific idea of what you want your article to be about, and sometimes they just start talking about all sorts of things.
Other things that are going on in the destination, or sometimes they’re talking very in depth about one thing that could be inputted in your story, but your story needs to cover a lot of different things, or something like that. And in those cases, you do definitely need to take something they’ve said and turn the conversation a different way by using that questions. And I mentioned earlier, and I have in the past couple weeks, that you don’t necessarily want to have a list of questions that you want to ask about prepared.
But you do want to have some things that you want to talk to them about. So, for instance, like when I was talking to Stephen before our call, he had mentioned that there were some festivals that he really wanted to tell me about. So, like even though we were kind of going along, I knew he wanted to ask about that, and I didn’t want to get off of topic before we touched on that. So, I made sure to pivot over and ask about that at the end.
But some other things that I wanted to highlight were — there were some times where, especially in the second call we were talking, and he mentioned something. And I was like, “Oh, can you tell me more about that,” but sometimes I didn’t just say, “Oh, can you tell me more about that.” What you can often do is take essentially the sentence that they said and say it back to them, and sort of say — I’m trying to find a note that I made over here — and say something like, “Oh, they have different boats just for this river? That’s very interesting. Tell me more about that.”
So, that can be a really good way to get specific stories. Like when he was talking about how not only do they design these different boats, and he told me about the speed of the river picks up and slows down, so they wanted a boat that could float differently and navigate the rocks well. Because I asked about that, I also got this really great piece of information, which is that a lot of the guides now are actually related with people who designed these boats in the first place.
So, sometimes tidbits like that just come out. When I was talking to Kristin, she had mentioned that — I’m trying to find it up here — the Purple something — Purple Door Ice Cream was started by a husband and wife couple who talked about on their very first date that they wanted to open an ice cream shop. That’s an amazing detail. That’s really cool. But you won’t always get those things right away. So, sometimes you need to take something that the person had said and just kind of say, “Oh, da, da, da, da,” which is repeating the same sentences they said, and say, “Tell me more about that.”
So, another good example of that was when he was telling me about the fairs, I thought he said county fair on the first one, and I’m glad I asked again. And so, I was kind of like, “So, tell me more about what it’s like to go to that fair,” and he was talking about that. But then I said, “Well, how do you get there? How do you park?” Because what you can run into, whether you’re talking to a person who owns their own company, and they just kind of mention different products that they have, or different wines that the winery makes, if you don’t ask them why, if you don’t say, “Why do you make that wine?”
Or like, “How do you actually get to this festival?” You can miss out on the types of details that you as a writer really want to include. So, for instance, for the country fair, it’s really useful to know not only that they partnered with local transit, and you can get there via local transit, but that you can even get there right from Eugene, which means that if you wanted to come down from Portland just to go to this festival for the day, you could take the train and then take the bus or the shuttle that they’ve set up over without having to rent a car just to go to this festival and park it all day. Because who would want to get a Zip car just to take it somewhere and park it. So, those are a couple things that I had made some notes on as we were talking to highlight.
But as I was going through and listening, I hear Stephen say that the 50th anniversary of these festivals is coming up. That’s great. I heard that the winery has just become service biodynamic. That’s another article idea. A lot of different that I talked about with both of them are thing that as I’m hearing on the call, I’m like, “Great. That not only works for the article I’m working on right now, but I can see making another article entirely just about this one thing.”
And on each of those calls, I probably heard 10 or 12 different things like that. And so, that’s the kind of thing that we look at in the webinar, and how to break your trips in the maximum number of pitches, and especially how to generate sure-fire salable ideas. And in the webinar on the magazine landscape and where all the magazine assignments are hiding, we talk about different types of magazines. So, on the call with Kristin, I mentioned how as we were talking about the restaurants and how they work together.
And one of the reasons that I asked for a follow-up question on that is that I can really see these programs, and specifically a profile on Dave Swanson from Braise, and how he’s worked to really grow the culinary scene. I can see a profile on that working in a trade magazine for restaurant tours in ways that they can help grow their community and also boost their own business profile.
So, that’s the kind of thing when often when you’re talking to somebody, you can see not only how the things that they’re telling you would work from a consumer application, for your own blog, for different magazines, but you can very frequently flip those around into trade articles for people in that industry. So, for instance, when Stephen was talking about the lighthouse, that’s the kind of thing that it’s a very unique opportunity for revenue for a historic building. And that might be something that can work in a magazine that’s aimed either at historic hotels, or historic locations like Preservation, which is a magazine about buildings in general that are renovated spaces.
So, with that, it was a pleasure chatting with you guys today, and I’m so sorry for all the technical issues, and I hope that at least this version of the slides is working for you guys. And I really appreciate you all joining me today, and I hope that you learned some interesting things from our guests, and maybe got some story ideas of your own from there, as well as watching how to do an interview.
So, thank you so much, and if there’s any more questions, I’ll hang out for a little bit and grab those. So, Carrie asks, “Is a press trip like a FAM for travel agents?” Yes, a press trip is like a FAM for agents, Carrie, except the thing with press trips is that in theory, but not necessarily all the time, a press trip is conceptualized as something that’s for people who already have an assignment. So, if they talk about having confirmed assignments or letters of assignments.
So, in general, a press trip, especially a group press trip, would be for people who saw the trip, were interested in the trip, pitched an idea, had an idea, accepted, and so, everyone on the trip will have a story in play or an outlet that they can be planning to place a story after the trip. I think that’s everything.
So, thank so much, you guys. And have a great holiday weekend, all of you. Cheers.
