Cherokee Trail

The Principal Chronicles continue ... As I write this, it is Wednesday and we are in the thick of CMAS. Our kids have been working really hard so hopefully, all of that hard work pays off. Since nothing really exciting is happening at school that is mildly entertaining to talk about I figured I would share my tale of visiting Pittsburgh for the first time to recruit teachers to DCSD. Last week I was asked to travel to the PERC (don't ask me what the acronym stands for because I don't have a clue) teacher fair in Pittsburgh, PA. With a large teacher shortage nationally as well as locally, most Districts recruit all over the country.

The first thing I noticed when I picked up my itinerary was the LONG layovers in Chicago on the way out and Charlotte on the way back. Essentially, I would be in airports longer than I would be in Pittsburgh. We left Colorado in the morning, and after four movies, three bottles of water, and some airport snacks we landed in Pittsburgh just shy of midnight. Typically when you get off of a plane at DIA there are always tons of people around no matter what time your flight lands. Pittsburgh? Not so much. There was NO ONE around. We actually thought the airport might be closed. I didn't think airports did close but if they did it would look like the Pittsburgh airport at midnight. After picking up our bags, we called our Uber and were picked up in a Dodge Dart by a lady who had just as many facial piercings as she did dancing figurines on her dashboard which was a lot. During our ride we talked about what made Pittsburgh special as we had heard a lot of great things about it from the three staff members at CTE from Pittsburgh. Her response? Pierogi. Now of all the things that people could be proud of in their city, I truly did not imagine Pierogis would be the number one thing. She actually talked about them for nearly 22 minutes which may, in fact, be an American record for most time spent speaking about a food I had never heard of.

Upon arriving at the Holiday Inn Express, (yes I know, that's funny too) we left our pierced Pierogi lover with the creepy dancing figurines and went to check in. Through the front desk person's randomness and unique ability to change subjects multiple times in a single sentence, she did manage to convey that there was only one place to get food, and that was at a gas station called Sheets which was just up the street. After listening to her tell us to watch out for potholes on our way (like I said, random), we ventured over. Keep in mind we hadn't seen very many people since our arrival in Pittsburgh. When we walked in the door of Sheets, we found all of the people. At 1:24 AM, the place was PACKED. Who has to wait in line to order gas station food at 1:24 AM? Definitely wasn't quality food in case any of you were wondering.

The next morning started really early so we could set up at the fair. The Holiday Inn Express serves a decent breakfast including pancakes that come out of a machine. Hadn't seen a pancake machine before, but still no sign of the elusive pierogi.

Arriving at the teacher fair we quickly realized this was a massive event. There were schools from all over the country and the world (Cherry Creek was there, side note: I may or may not have taken the entire quantity of free shwag off of their table when they went for food). There were schools from Alaska, Sweden, China, and across from us was Largo County Florida. Largo County must be a very desirable district to be in because they had a huge line for the entire time we were there. After interviewing tons of great people we had to rush out to get to the airport. Before we left, however, the mysterious pierogi made its debut for lunch. Basically, it was a ravioli stuffed with mashed potatoes. Can't say I was a huge fan but what I was told later by my Pittsburgh teachers is that they have to be done "right".

On the way to the airport, guess what the Uber driver talked about for 30 straight minutes. Yep, pierogi. He actually told us, to our faces, that stuffing pierogi with sourkraut is by far the best food on the planet. Not sure if I agree with that statement but he was pretty certain.

We barely made the flight and with our super fun four-hour layover in Charlotte, we arrived back into Denver at (you guessed it) midnight. Thank goodness there aren't any Sheets in Colorado.

That is it for this week's edition, stay tuned next week when the Principal Chronicles continue ...