After 11 years of coming to St. Petersburg, these trees still freak me out …

Teachapalooza VII wrapped this morning and most everyone headed home. A few have Monday morning flights and I’m here for a few more days doing some webinars for the Poynter Institute.

The hotel pool is looking better than the one at home, though the Mrs. has been working on it while I’ve been on this ridiculous trip.

The IndyCar racing series has their season-opening event in St. Petersburg, just outside the hotel I tend to stay in. Three months after the race, you can still see the rubber the cars have pushed into the pavement.

And we’re off … The Poynter Institute’s Teachapalooza VIII launched this morning with a record 106 teachers in the room. It’s a high-energy weekend of learning, laughing, challenging and debating.

Also, prizes get thrown around.

After eight days of high-altitude, low humidity life, I am headed to one of the most magical placed – The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, for the most comically named educators conference, Teachapalooza.

It’s just as hot there but with a lot more oxygen and humidity, I could use a little of both.

We wrapped up the field reporting early this afternoon, this was much more of a challenge than we had anticipated.

We did two final things, one was an official tour of the U.S. Olympic Training Center where we had been staying and then we took the kids up to Manitou Springs to play tourists.

(Yes, she flipped it.)

The U.S. Air Force Academy, from the small portion I’ve been able to see, has some very nice modernist architecture. And a lot of birds.

The kids, though … only one short day left on base.