Which means on-the-road differences, discoveries and frustrations.

Like this:

Meet the only iron in the free world that refuses to heat up. I’ll be a little more wrinkled tomorrow for it.

Anyway, we’re in Troy at the Southeastern Journalism Conference. This is the 25th meeting of that august group, an annual gathering meant to promote journalism among aspiring students.

Samford has five nice, excited and thoughtful students on this trip. They’ll pick up awards the school has earned over the last year and compete for more honors in various on-site competitions.

Today the contest was in just getting down here. This trip is supposed to take two-and-a-half hours. We drove through an accident. We drove through one of those improbably slowdowns where nothing was going on at the front of the thing — it was mystifying, no merging, no stalls, cops or wrecks, everything just ground down to nothing for a while. I hate those things, even though I’ve read somewhere that it comes down to inattention. Someone jams on the brakes unexpectedly in a high volume situation and it can impact the road’s behavior for miles.

Anyway, then there was stopping to get gas because the rental car people didn’t give me enough. Then there was dinner – Chick-fil-A, my third visit there in as many days. Then we got turned around, but only for about two minutes.

Finally we made it to the conference hotel. We registered and then moved down the road to our hotel. When I got in my room it was 10 p.m., even. We left at 5 p.m.

Which is when the fun began. No Internet connection. My computer could see the local router, but could not get on. Observation: do not go ask the people at the front desk about this. That young lady wanted it to work really badly, but she had no idea.

Finally I found a phone number of the third-party contractor that provides the Internet service. We changed a few settings and she had me surfing in a few minutes.

Which is when I discovered the iron doesn’t heat up. And, yes, I surf while I iron. You don’t?

So tomorrow I’ll get that replaced.

Also, I’m not sure how the shower controls work. I think someone put that cover plate with the temperature guide onto the wall backwards.

But the soaps smell lovely. I have a huge television and a clean bed. And, despite this place being packed with college students in Troy for the conference, it seems quiet enough.

Tomorrow there will be workshop sessions, the on-site competitions, picking up a few awards, meeting nice people and more.