The Simple Life

I am currently safe and happy in Idaho. On monday I finished my finals and headed to Vegas. I was pretty nervous about traveling alone, but it all turned out great. I got to Vegas, headed up to my room, looking forward to a shower. My room turned out to be at the very end of the hall, around the corner, and facing the stairwell... completely isolated from the rest of the rooms. I was uncomfortable, so called the front desk for another room option. The women said they only had rooms with loud music until 3am or ones that needed a couple of hours to be cleaned. I was trying to come up with a decent compromise, but was hesistant. Then she found out I was only there for one night and immediately put me in a suite. It was totally awesome. There was an entryway, a living room with a widescreen flat tv, another widescreen flat tv in the bedroom, and smaller flatscreen tv facing the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. The bathroom had two sinks and a nice large shower. I was so stoked. I cleaned up and went down to Toby Keith's bar.

I was feeling sort of lonely when I first went down to the bar. It was a crowd of mostly middle-aged women and they were playing country music videos on all the tvs. It turned out to be a pretty fun night though. I talked to the bartenders, who seemed grateful to have a young person around. The gave me free beers and I even shot-gunned a redbull with a bartender named 'Chocolate Thunder'. The bartenders were mostly young cute guys who liked to juggle alcohol bottles and stand on the bar to pour free shots into people's mouths. It was very amusing to watch.

The drive to Salt Lake was mostly uneventful except for the crazy weather; alternating between pouring and sunny. In Salt Lake, I stayed with a very nice Mormon family. The kids were adorable and the mother very sweet. The only strange thing was when the 7 year old said, "I want to work for a couple of years, then quit my job, get married, and have kids". A 7 year old!

When I arrived in Idaho the next day, I got lost 3 times in town before someone found me and had me follow them to the destination. I unpacked, went grocery shopping, had a couple beers at a local place, then got to know the guys in my building over a couple more beers. Everyone seems nice and interesting and I think it will be a very fun summer. I just have to get used to waking up at 5 am to take the bus to the site I will normally be working at....