In case you haven't seen the announcement, registration is now open for the Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit, which will take place Sat-Sun October 5-6 in Vancouver BC. I would strongly recommend going for anyone who has a basic background in Drupal and wants to be exposed to new techniques, useful modules, and ideas. I go every year, and at $50 for a two-day conference (including lunch and social events), it's a real bargain. The past few Summits have sold out, so if you want to go, sign up now!
I looked into transportation options from Spokane for the Summit:
- Amtrak takes about 14 hours each way (transfer in Seattle) and costs about $200.
- Greyhound takes 11 hours each way (transfer in Seattle) and costs about $115.
- Flying takes about 3 hours (transfer in Seattle or Portland on Alaska Air), and the lowest current fare I saw is $462.
- Google Maps says it would take about 6 1/2 to 7 hours to drive there, and it is roughly 400 miles each way. At standard IRS business mileage calculation rates (currently 56.5 cents per mile), that actually costs something like $450 (which includes wear&tear and other driving costs; in my car, which seats 4, it would be about $80 in gas).
So... Anyone want to carpool? Given the time to get to/from the airports on both ends, it's not much more time than flying, and with a few people, the cost would be fairly small. I'd propose that the people who are passengers pay the cost of gas, since the person supplying the car will incur the other costs of driving.
If you're interested, add a comment here, and we can also discuss this at the next (or next few) meetings (the next meeting is this Thursday at 10 AM).
Comments
Cost
If anyone is concerned about cost... The conference is $50, and transportation costs are discussed in the post above.
The official hotel for the conference is $150 Canadian per night (US/Canada $ are about the same at the moment), but there is a Ramada Inn about 2 blocks away that has rooms for $89 per night (two twin beds or 1 queen bed), so two people could share for that price (includes breakfast and Internet). I will probably stay there. Parking is about $30 per night.
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Lodging update
The Ramada no longer has the 2-twin-bed rooms available for those dates. Since it looked like lodging was getting tighter, and no one contacted me to share a room, I went ahead and booked myself a one-bed room in the Days Inn about 4 blocks away from the conference.
On kayak.com, there are still places nearby with decent prices for Vancouver, but you might want to book soon if you're going. If you are booking alternative lodging rather than the official conference hotel, I would try for west of the conference venue rather than east. My recollection from my last trip (3 years ago, the last time the Summit was there) is that a few blocks east/SE of the venue, downtown Vancouver gets a bit scary (lots of drug dealing activity), especially at night. So go to your favorite booking site and search for hotels near 555 W Hastings St, Vancouver, BC V6B 4N4 (the conference site), but look on the map and try to stay W/NW of about Cambie Street.
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Still carpooling / I-90 construction
Diane and I are going to carpool to the Summit. We plan to leave from the East Spokane Valley area on Friday the 4th around noon, and drive straight to Vancouver. For the return, we are driving back Sunday the 6th. We may leave slightly before the end of the summit, so as not to arrive home way late in the evening on Sunday. We're both staying downtown at a Days Inn a few blocks from the conference venue (not the official conference hotel).
There is room for one more person in my car, or maybe two if people do not have much luggage. So, if anyone needs a ride to the Summit on that schedule, let me know (use the contact form on my user account here).
A note for anyone driving: I-90 is under construction at the pass, and they're projecting 2 hour delays for anyone going our direction over the pass on Friday-Sunday, the next 6 weekends. So, I think we'll probably try to take US-2 instead, which would also mean missing much of the Friday Seattle-area rush hour traffic jam. Check
http://www.wsdot.com/traffic/trafficalerts/
for up-to-date information.
Hope to see you all there!
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon