My girlfriend Sarah and I went to the combination VAR-SERA.
I thought it was a great event, although it was a long drive to get there. I had to take half a day off on Friday to make things more acceptable.
We had no troubles with the showers; they worked great when we needed them, and we used the ones in the small ravine.
We had no problems with the organization, but we were surprised that a Saturday supper wasn't included in the price.
The heat was bad, but what can you do about that? We were able to camp in the shade, and were able to check out our replacement camping gear (the 2007 Convention storm was not very good to us!). So we were ok with the shade, and we only got moderately totally drenched in the Friday-night rainstorm.
The awards ceremony was incredibly long and painful; I thought they must have been taken lessons from OTR.
We rode the Virginia Creeper Trail on Saturday and went to the Gray Museum on Sunday. Both were things I've wanted to do for a long, long time. Both were excellent, especially the bike ride.
Wish I could have done the geology field trip, but oh well... Can't do it all.