The last post talked about the trip across to Santa Fe and the first few days settling in. Now that I'm back from the week away, I've written up the second part of the mini-series, which covers the main part of the trip and the return.
As I was up early with jet lag on my second morning in Santa Fe, I headed across the car park to "the gym" at the resort.
I use inverted commas because it really wasn't much of a gym, and by the time I arrived it was already full of Autodeskers (three of my colleagues had gotten there sooner), and I honestly wasn't motivated to sweat away on a stationary bike in such a cramped space.
I grabbed a coffee and headed back to my room, where I spent a couple of hours reviewing proposals for next year's TechX conference. (I decided to sign up as a reviewer for our "Platform" track, which has been a great way to find out what's happening across the company, even if it's tricky to find the time to review 50 class proposals during a busy period of the year.)
Our Senior VP of Research, Mike Haley, kicked things off with his view on where things are in the organisation.
This first proper day of the offsite focused on our research areas: it's the second year we've held "speed dating", where the leadership teams for our research areas rotate around the room, spending focused time discussing their work with various stakeholders. It's a really good way to have this dialog - rather than a larger lecture-style format with Q&A - but it's quite intense.
We were thankfully able to stretch our legs from time to time.
When the day was finished we congregated at the front of the hotel to take our bus to the evening event.
Here's a quick snap of the whole team - we did have a photographer there taking proper photos, but I don't expect we'll see those for another week or two.
We took a bus to the evening event at Meow Wolf. I'd already visited their Omega Mart exhibit in Las Vegas, back at AU 2023, but this was a chance to see the original House of Eternal Return experience in Santa Fe.
We had a special menu arranged.
We were in the Rainbow Room: we could choose to stay here and chat, wander around the exhibit at our leisure, or participate in a scavenger hunt.
I joined a scavenger hunt team with Dagmara, Tonya and Angie. Each team had a different set of questions to answer - it wasn't easy, by any means!
Meow Wolf is wild. Here are some photos I took - included here without commentary - to give you a small sense of it.
I was wearing some LED shoes and an LED hat that I'd been gifted by the APS team during the last couple of AUs (thanks to Sanjana and Cyrille for these - it was really the perfect moment to put them on!).
One of the iconic experiences at the House of Eternal Return is the washing machine portal. It wasn't easy to get in. (Thanks to Jane Harrison for taking these photos!)
At the other end you enter a world of single socks and other lost items.
Despite the excitement of the exhibit, there was plenty of time to unwind and chat with colleagues after a busy day.
Somehow - and I will put a lot of this on Tonya and Angie, who admit to being super competitive, but also on Dagmara, who brought some much-needed discipline - we ended up winning the scavenger hunt. Which meant we had $250 between us to spend in the Meow Wolf gift shop.
I already knew that my hand luggage (I was traveling very light) didn't have enough space for more clothing, so I was really happy to see there were $15 sets of View-Master reels for each of the five exhibits currently in operation (Santa Fe, Las Vegas, Denver, Grapevine and Houston). I ended up picking up four of them with my share of the spoils - I have lots of View-Masters at home, so it was perfect.
Here's Matthew checking one of the reels out in the shop.
Back at the hotel some of us went for a dip in the hot tub.
The next morning I managed to join another group of colleagues for a walk around Santa Fe.
It was a nice way to start the day - the autumn colours were just lovely.
This second day was focused on adjacent research efforts - it was really valuable for getting a sense of potential connections with them.
At lunchtime I snuck out to buy some jewellery from Native American artisans by the Governor's Palace.
After this second day, we once again met at the front of the hotel to take a bus to dinner at Izanami.
We were dropped off at the bottom of the hill, as the bus was too long to turn around in the car park. It was a nice walk up, and it's always good to feel like you've earned your dinner. 😉
Izanami is part of the Ten Thousand Waves resort. The place was amazing. They even had Japanese toilet seats (the heated ones with those scary spray buttons).
We'd chosen our dinner options in advance. I went heavy on the raw fish.
It was a really fun way to wrap up the offsite.
Lots of chances to chat with colleagues.
The staff were exceptional, too.
At one point I popped out to take a few photos of the sky.
Back at the hotel some of us stopped by the bar for a nightcap. Dan clearly chose his to match his shoes, socks and the lamp. Very dapper indeed.
On Thursday we had a light day, with a few unconference sessions before lunch. One of them was even held outside. He's a photo of Gareth and myself in deep concentration.
From here we headed to a cafe called Tres Colores for lunch. I had fish tacos, which were very good. It was a fun crowd of people.
The most fun being Gareth, of course.
People were starting their journey home. Some of the remaining folks stopped by the Georgia O'Keefe Museum, which really is a must-see excursion in Santa Fa. Going in I knew very little about her, but certainly came away a fan.
Others were heading to the airports (either Santa Fe or Albuquerque) by the time we arrived back at the hotel.
Matthew had found a great poncho to go with his hat.
Those of us who were staying until Friday walked to dinner at The Compound, a place Georgia O'Keefe had apparently stayed, back in the day.
It was very fancy.
I don't recognize all the words in this heart, but I assume they all mean "Love".
A few folks ordered a cocktail that came with a slice of prosciutto. Very curious.
We celebrated Amanda's birthday.
A few of us had one last dip, when back at the hotel. The crisp evening air of the high desert was pretty much perfect for this.
By Friday morning there were a small number of folks left. Three of us hiked up to Fort Marcy - with the newer Cross of the Martyrs - to get a view across the city.
Once back we met up with others to drive across to the Meow Wolf offices for a "behind the scenes" tour.
This was a great opportunity to see how the exhibits get made!
We were welcomed by Mike Root, who - along with his colleague Ruby, who manages the shop area - gave us a fantastic tour.
The Meow Wolf team is working towards opening a new location in Los Angeles, so we couldn't take many photos as we went around. But here's a hot dog art version of the Sistine Chapel.
This is the creative space at Meow Wolf (although the shop area is also highly creative, of course).
You can just tell the place is full of artists.
I'm really not sure what was on this wall. But hey.
Amanda and I headed out a bit early to catch an Uber to Albuquerque. Here's a pear tree outside the offices.
It took us quite some time to get a car: despite what the app indicated, there weren't many drivers who were willing to pick up the fare. And the one who did come was a little on the strange side, to say the least. It was a good thing there were two of us.
We arrived at ABQ an hour before my flight was due to leave (Amanda's was later).
Luckily it's a really small airport - and needed very little time to pass security - so I had the chance to chat with Lisa and Nigel (two colleagues taking the same flight to Chicago) before boarding.
Nigel and I boarded together.
I had a window seat and it was interesting to see Albuquerque from the air.
I had quite a walk at O'Hare to get to Terminal 5, which seems very new. It seems there's a way to change terminals without going through security, but I didn't find it. Despite having to pass security - with a bit of a hold-up due to their use of sniffer dogs - I still had time to sit down for a salad before boarding.
I had a window seat on this connecting flight, too, which meant I could snap some photos as we landed.
This trip to Santa Fe was really valuable. We were a bit unlucky to have been hit by travel disruptions - who could have anticipated a federal shutdown such as this one, during precisely this week? - but the main disruptions on the way home (I know of one person being impacted, for now) were technical rather than FAA-related.
This annual summit (it's our second year running it) is turning into a great opportunity to share knowledge internally about our research efforts and get guidance from our leadership team on strategy and direction. It's also a chance to reconnect with colleagues and a whole lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the next one already!
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