Home, Home, Home at Last

So I'm home... thank God. The past three days have been... interesting doesn't quite cut it. Sunday thru Tuesday were spent in Las Vegas. No I didn't win any money. Yes I lost. Quite a bit. Tuesday Margaret and I began our cross-country road trip. Sorry to report that we didn't have any moonings or elk sightings, as we didn't drive through Dallas again. But let me tell you... I-40... SO boring after the 10th state. Tuesday was spent driving through Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, where we stopped in Tucumari. Wednesday was New Mexico (the last 10 miles), Texas, Oklahoma (incidently going through Carrie Underwood's hometown :), Arkansas, Tennesse and Mississippi. Finally, Thursday was the last leg of our trip, only having to go through Mississippi and Alabama until finally reaching home. It was a 32 hour trip. 12 1/2 hours the first two days, 5 1/2 the last day. I highly recommend it to all my enemies.

Stole this from Bradley's page...

10 years ago: Aug 1995 - I was starting 8th grade
5 years ago: Aug 2000 - Moving into my dorm room and starting college
1 year ago: Aug 2004 - Starting my last year of college
Last week: checking out of HR at the Grand Canyon, finishing up packing and work
Yesterday: driving. lots of driving.
Today: sleeping, taking my car to be serviced, going to campus, getting class books, meeting wiht professors
Tomorrow: unpacking
5 bands/singers that I know the lyrics of MOST of their songs: Dixie Chicks, Reba McIntire, Guns n Roses, Metallica, Rascall Flatts
5 things I would do with $100,000,000: buy a boat, hire a captain, go to Ireland, pay my credit cards, put in bank (how boring)
5 locations I’d like to run away to: Ireland, Athens (Greece), Rome, Venice, Scotland
5 bad habits I have: over-analyze, am overly competitive (at times), little confidence, shy
5 things I like doing: sports (playing, watching, tailgating), reading, movies, playin with the dog, anything with friends
5 things I would never wear: white pants. they would make my rear end look huger.

There were more of those but I got bored. Later.

What Happens in August in the Grand Canyon?

Well first of all it's the beginning of something the locals call Monsoon Season. Which is, pretty much self-explanatory. We all know what a monsoon is right? Well that happens EVERY DAY here in the great Grand Canyon State. It pours. Including your basic standard lightening, great big thunder claps, heat lightening, and rain. Lots and lots of rain. Which of course, brings the tourists that have come to be so near and dear to my heart (ha, yeah right!) scurrying inside like little the rabbits that dart across my porch. Not really buying anything, just milling around, taking up space and time. Screwing up the neatly folded t-shirts, picking up merchandise and then breaking it, and spilling desert tea all over the floor.

Secondly, during the month of August, all foreigners come to the States. Italians, Brits, French, Germans and the Japanese. No offense to the Asians, but in my limited three-month experience, they have no concept of waiting their turn, being polite... instead they shove their way through the meandering line of impatient vacationers, slapping the dozen postcards on the counter and looking at me like I'm supposed to wait on them next and ignore everyone else in line, who are just as impatient, but at least have the common decency to wait until it's their turn to yell at me and bestow upon me rude stares.

They're on vacation I want to tell them -- have a little patience. It's not like you have anywhere to go. That's the whole point of a vacation. Take a cue from the Grand Canyon.

Geez. The good news is that only two more days of work left at the Trading Post, then I have to go check out in HR, Saturday pack my car and Sunday I'm headed to Vegas to meet Marge and then we're driving back home to the sweet state of Alabama.

26 days and counting..

Yup, 26 days. After working two eleven-hour shifts this week, and cleaning until my sinuses protested, I'm grateful for my two days off tomorrow and tuesday. I'm so sleepy I can barely think....

Today was Sunday and since Emmy is at home in Pennsylvania, I had to hold services on my own. Talk about freaked out. Four people showed up... students who had just finished participating in a Catholic ministry *thing* for a whole year. Anyway, so I was definintly freaked out. Totally didn't expect to have ANYONE show up for service.

I can't really function anymore... the 11-hour shift has taken its toll so I'll catch ya'll on the flip side.

Sweet Home Alabama

Thank God for the South. Trees and green grass and people who are polite. Humidity and heat and swimming pools and fireworks for cryin' out loud!

So I'm home for the 4th of July for a few days. I'm telling you, I think I shed some tears when I saw those big, beautiful, green trees from the airplane. Arizona's trees are bushes. I'm not even kidding. Mom and Blake picked me up at Groome about 2:00 today and my little sister -- yeah, not so little anymore. I think she grew a freakin foot in the two months I've been gone! What's up with that? And my brothers too!! They had a balloon and some flowers and a cake -- real cake!! -- for me when I got home -- isn't that sweet??!!

I got to see Hunter, my puppy, who closely resembles Chewbaca and desperately needs a bath! It's the 4th of July and in the Grand Canyon they don't even do fireworks --- something about the fire danger?! :) What danger, its not like they're in the middle of a desert or anything! I don't know why people come to the canyon for the 4th. There is no parade, no fireworks celebration, no red, white or blue memorbilia... no confetti or snazzy cakes to celebrate our nation's Independence -- so go home, where there is all of that stuff!

I'll be at home for 4 days and I think that they'll have to hog-tie me to get me back on that airplane. Having said that, I've been up since 2:30 Cali time and I think I'm going to go take a nap. :)

Pickin' Wildflowers...

Tonight me and Emmy are in Phoenix. We arrived yesterday about 10:30 or so, after leaving work at the canyon. We checked into our hotel and immediately booted up the computers to access the world wide web. :) We decided that neither of us could spend any long amount of time in the sticks. We miss civilization entirely too much. So we arrived and began checking our email. I had 12 new messages. :)

This morning, after sleeping late, off we went to the Fiesta Mall, where I window-shopped. We came back to the hotel and went swimming! Ahh... water! The temperature topped out at 110 today in Phoenix. Emmy added a new Nextel phone to her collection.

After swimming, and watching some TV (who knew that fuel prices had risen so much?), we got dressed and left for the Grapevine, a karaoke bar/restaurant. YAY! Emmy sang about a half dozen songs, including "Crazy" (Patsy Cline), "Pour Me" (Trick Pony), and "You Light Up My Life" (LeAnn Rhimes). Together we sang "Mama He's Crazy" (The Judds), "Sin Wagon" (Dixie Chicks), "Does He Love You" (Reba McIntire & Linda Davis) and "Somedays You Gotta Dance" (Dixie Chicks). I sang "You Were Mine" (Dixie Chicks) all by myself. I think everyone was impressed with how we sang... and everyone in there was so good.

We just got back to the hotel room and tomorrow we're going to the Arizona State University library, then up to Sedona and finally back to the canyon.

I get to go home though... over the 4th and I'm so excited. I get to go home for about 4 days and I absolutely cannot wait. Emmy's birthday is the 25th of July and then after that Robert is coming out to visit. And then it's home for good. :)

Goodnight all -- condolences to Bradley, who lost a member of his family today. Love you Bradley!

Excuse me, can I use this Canadian coin here?

Did I bebop into Canada and not know it? A customer today tried to pay with a Canadian coin. When I told her that we couldn't take it, she looked at me, in all seriousness and said "oh, that won't work here?" Umm.. No! Did you cross the country border and not realize it? And no, for your information, what you're looking at over there, across the wide hole IS NOT CANADA! And, just for the record, "Alabama is where I'm from, NOT my last name". All questions I've gotten in the past two days at work.

Mike's wedding was this past weekend. I actually missed the humidity. Seriously. I walked out of the airport in New Orleans and literally felt my skin begin to stick and knew, knew I was back in the South. Ah, how I've missed it. :)

The wedding, by the way, was beautiful, of course. I didn't expect anything less. I actually danced! Can you believe it? Mike almost made me cry when I said bye to him and he told me that it meant the world to him that I was there. When I think about him, I'm grateful that I spent that time at Pi Kapp and it makes the guys who are jerks there worth it.

G'nite everyone. Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite. :)

Phoenix, Arizona... NOT Phenix City!!

Emilie's uncle died, so we headed down to Phoenix after work this afternoon so she can catch a flight out to Iowa at 6am in the morning. We're in the hotel room now, after driving most of the afternoon. We stopped in Sedona, for dinner, right before the storm hit. I've got to go back. It's only about an 1 1/2 - 2 hr. drive from the Grand Canyon and it was just beautiful. Made me glad that I have my camera. Of course I didn't take any pictures, cause I was driving. But I still had it.

It's a nice little day-trip. Would be cool to come back. At least I can say that I ventured past Flagstaff, Arizona into the middle of the state. Like I said, we're holed up in the hotel room right now cause 3am comes REALLY early!!!

Work's been good -- been workin alot of shifts lately. Payin my dues so that they'll let me off for Mike's wedding, which they did. Except I've got to switch shifts with someone so I can catch my flight out at 11am on Friday morning. It was the only flight that I could get. Mike's wedding is a saturday wedding Mass -- I've never been to a Catholic Mass before, much less a wedding mass... and then on Sunday Emilie and I have our ACMNP retreat to Lake Powell in Utah.

Anyway, nothing very exciting to report here. Headed back up to the Grand Canyon tomorrow morning, so I can get back for work at 12pm. I'm going to be so dead on my feet tomorrow.... :)