Notes From Inside The Perimeter
KRLD's Mike Rogers is covering the RNC Convention in Tampa, Florida for CBSDFW.COM
If you're ever sent to cover a major political convention, take my advice and bring some good walking shoes. Trust me on this, because I've covered a few of these. You'll walk more than you've ever walked in your life, and it's all because of "The Perimeter."
This an arbitrary line that convention organizers set up around the main venue, or, in the case of Republican National Convention here in Tampa, venues - plural.
We have the main arena, of course, AND the convention center - two buildings separated by a couple of blocks, but enclosed in a single perimeter, which expands outward by roughly three blocks in every direction. The resulting rectangle encompasses an area roughly the size of Colorado, with the single media entrance located - almost hidden - in one corner (and it's worth noting that the opposite corner - farthest from that one media entrance - is where the entrance into the actual arena is located - of course).
Making things worse is the fact that parking is just simply not available anywhere near the perimeter.
I myself am parking about eight blocks away, which leaves me with a gut-busting 16 block walk from my car seat to my workspace, hauling computers and recorders and microphones, and then back again at the end of the day.
Down sidewalks, up stairs, across trolley tracks, through security checkpoints, and every step of it through heat and humidity that have left my colleagues from Houston speechless. Tampa, Florida - Ask Us About Our Pit Stains!
Finally, the cherry on top. I stepped off a curb wrong yesterday and did some serious damage to my foot, so now I look like Igor in a Frankenstein movie, dragging my leg down the deserted streets of Tampa at four in the morning. Okay, that's an exaggeration (but just barely).
Gee I miss Texas.
