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Wednesday, September 8, 2021 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Dark days of September 2001 set a path to Central Oregon
By Vicki Curlett
Guest Columnist
Long before my coming
to The Nugget, I had my own
business in strategic meeting,
incentive, and special events
planning, working mostly
with corporations and mid-
size businesses.
For nine months prior to
September 11, 2001, I was at
work on a custom-designed
incentive trip for a client in
Michigan that was taking 200
people on a trip rewarding
them for their sales efforts
with his distributorship. The
destination for that group
was Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I9d made several trips out to
New Mexico as I planned
the trip, and then a few days
prior to the scheduled arrival
of the group, I flew out and
settled in on-site with prepa-
rations for their arrivals,
flights in from Michigan,
Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania. Fortunately,
there were no flight delays
and everyone was put on char-
ter bus transportation from
Albuquerque as they arrived.
We opened the trip that
night with a Native American
feast high up in the moun-
tains. I had worked with the
hotel chef on a special menu.
And after dinner, I9d arranged
for live eagle handlers to fly
them around the perimeter of
where the group was and then
perch them so guests could
get a closer look. After din-
ner, we did a roaring fire with
Native American storytellers
and dancers. It was a great
opening for the trip, as I was
always known for my origi-
nal ideas and activities.
Two days into the trip, I
was up early before checking
on breakfast arrangements
and turned on the TV to see
planes flying into the Twin
Towers. Meeting and incen-
tive planners are trained in
crisis management but there
was no way anyone could
anticipate an event of this
magnitude or what was to
follow. I rushed downstairs
to get some TVs set up in
my host suite for guests to
monitor.
The panic and uncertainty,
with each guest walking into
the suite, was evident. As the
day wore on, and I tried to
keep the group on track with
the tours activities we had
planned, and their anxiety
levels down, it was obvious
I was going to have to make
some major modifications to
the trip originally planned for
seven days. All flights were
grounded nationwide, people
around the country who were
traveling by car had to find a
hotel and stay put, and emer-
gency management efforts
were in full swing as officials
tried to determine whether
this was just the first of other
attacks.
For starters, some guests
were National Guard and
indicated they would have
to get back home as quickly
as possible in case they were
called up for duty. Others just
thought the world was going
to end and wanted to rent
cars to drive cross-country
for fear of never seeing their
children and families again. I
advised against it, noting they
might not find hotels or food
or other necessary services,
depending on the outcome.
Interesting how people react
in times of crisis.
I called a meeting of the
entire group and indicated
we would need to prioritize
getting those like National
Guard back as quickly as
possible, asking other guests
to remain for the duration of
the trip if they could and be
patient as I tried to get air-
line seats as they became
available. For some it would
mean extending their stay
depending on where their
hometown airport was. With
all flights grounded, I was up
all night most nights with air-
line agents trying to change
tickets and get a seat or two
on any given flight when it
became available. When you
have to do that with 200 seats
it is a monumental task!
Others needed rental cars
or vans to drive out, but
at a steep price the rental
companies were charging.
Meanwhile, I kept the sched-
ule as best I could, and even
had to start arranging for
additional activities, meals,
and more hotel nights since
some guests would need
to stay beyond the planned
departure date. What was to
be a seven-day trip, turned
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weeks later. We flew into
Portland and headed down
the rainy coast, then turned
east and crested Santiam Pass
to a spectacular fall leaf dis-
play. As we drove into Bend,
my husband and I looked at
each other and said <uh-oh,=
because we9d spent years
of corporate travel wonder-
ing where we wanted to call
home permanently.
The morning after arriving
at Sunriver Resort, I met with
a sales rep who was going to
show us around and arrange
some activities. When she
asked what we wanted to
do, I said, <Find me a real-
tor.= That was a Tuesday, and
her mother, who was a real-
tor, met with us and took us
touring on Wednesday. On
Friday we found a house in
Sunriver we wanted to make
an offer on, contingent on the
owner accepting the offer by
Friday night because we were
flying out on Saturday morn-
ing. They accepted, and we
got on the plane home ask-
ing ourselves what had just
happened.
So a very stressful time 20
years ago in Santa Fe turned
into a very happy ending 4
finding our forever home in
Central Oregon.
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into an 11-day trip until I
could get all the guests, and
even my client, who stayed
until the end to offer assis-
tance wherever needed, back
to their home airports. On
day 11, when the last shuttle
bus of guests was on its way
to the Albuquerque airport, I
realized that I was not going
to be able to get a flight home
to Nebraska. I was able to get
a rental car, so after all the
million details of an incen-
tive trip were tied up with
the hotel, I departed Santa Fe
at 4 p.m. The drive was 16
hours long through the night,
with intense fog as it turned
out. I rolled in to my house
and fell into bed.
Interestingly, when I
started looking at destinations
for the incentive trip, one of
the choices was Sunriver
Resort because they had
wanted me to come out for
a site inspection to see if it
was a good fit for the group.
I didn9t have time to make
the trip then and decided on
Santa Fe.
But after such a grueling
trip, I was ready for a vaca-
tion, and my husband and I
decided it was a good excuse
to finally make that trip to
Central Oregon a couple of
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