Now, let me also say that this past weekend (over Halloween) was one of the most adventurous adventures I've had in quite a while, not to mention it was in the state of the least amount of bathrooms I have ever seen in my whole life: Wyoming.
Onward to: Adventures in Wyoming.
(Sorry one more sidenote before I start my tale of adventure: this post is probably going to be very very long, so I'm adding as many pictures as possible so I don't bore you to tears!)
It begins with three people: Rob, Jen, and myself. Rob is a cadet with Arnold Air Society, Jen is part of the civilian portion of our joint organization (the Silver Wings side) and I am also a cadet. We're all from the same school, and we were going to a conference for our two organizations in Laramie, Wyoming, called ARCON (Area-Region Conclave). The two organizations together are a service and professional development group that is loosely based around AFROTC.
Now, my entire job for this year is to act as the host of ARCON. I am supposed to greet everyone, thank them for coming, make sure everything doesn't explode -- you get the idea. And I currently live about 7 hours away from Laramie. So off on an adventure we went!
We left on Friday morning around 9:00 AM. We figured that we'd make it there around 3:00 or 4:00, and still be there on time for when everyone starting showing up around 5:00. Well, the Adventure Gods had other plans for us.
We drove for about 4 hours, until we reached a little town in the middle of nowhere called Rock Springs, Wyoming. Now, I am from a hicktown myself where the rodeo is the most important event of the year, but Rock Springs one-upped me about a million times over. I wish I had taken pictures of all the strange things and people I saw in this quaint little town, but alas, I was not thinking we would be there very long. Oh, how I was wrong.
Now, apparently, Wyoming likes to close down their highways for random reasons, even when the sun is shining and there's not a cloud in the sky. This time, apparently the winds were like 40 mph and blowing snow across the highway making blizzard-like conditions. Psshh. Get real. Oh well, we were not allowed to pass.
It was about 1:00 by this point, and there was a severe weather warning for high winds until 6:00 that night, so we decided to wait it out and see if they'd open the roads back up again around 6:00. So the adventure in Rock Springs began!
Since we had several hours to kill, we found the local Walmart (Omigosh! Yeah! They had a Walmart!) Well, Rob had forgot to bring a part of his costume for the masquerade ball at ARCON, so we went and bought a shirt! Oh and new earbuds.
And they were closed. Bah. So that idea was out the window. Then we decided that we could just go get a Redbox movie and watch it on one of our laptops. SO...we went back to Walmart to look for a Redbox! Yay! After renting, "The Soloist", we went to watch our movie. Yes, we sat in the Walmart parking lot for two hours and watched a movie. See, here's the proof!
Random insert here: during our many drives around Rock Springs, we passed this little fantastic place. Do you think this describes me?? :)
"Hot Bodies Tanning & Spa"
Okay, so after the "movie", we were hungry, so off we went to find food! We found an Applebee's, and Rob had never eaten there so that was a new adventure for him. Woohoo! No pictures though, unfortunately. Alright so now we're around 6:00 and I checked my iPhone, and the weather alert had lifted, so we went to go see if the highway was open! After a quick stop at the gas station, we were on the highway! Unfortunately, (geez, there's a lot of "unfortunately's" in this story...) the road was still closed and when we asked the patrol officer if we could go any further just so we were closer to Laramie (keep in mind that we're still at least 3 hours out), he said we could make it to a town called Rawlins, but it's not as big as Rock Springs so there probably wouldn't be anywhere to stay.
Okay. So, what do we do? At this point, I am frantically calling my cohorts at University of Wyoming in Laramie, telling them I'm not going to make it and what they need to do and what presentations they'll need to do in my place, and what to tell who, etc., while Rob and Jen try to find us a hotel with free internet access. They found us a "La Quinta" (btw, funniest name I've ever heard), and we got in and settled down after a bit of drama that I won't talk about here.
Sorry, no pictures of the funny people in the La Quinta -- it was mostly truck drivers and other travelers that got stuck, but some people just have funny things about them. So we sleep, and wake up the next morning, and we're back on the road by 8:00. The road had opened up on Saturday morning up to Rawlins, but we were thinking that by the time we got there (about an hour and a half away), the second part of the road to Laramie would open and we'd be good to go. Here's a few pics of the us riding into the sunrise towards Rawlins.
Toodooloo Rock Springs! Hope I never see you again!
So we get to Rawlins. Road is still closed. Bummer. We found out about this little highway that goes behind the mountain that was causing all the snow-blizzard-wind problems, and thought if we could get to it, we'd only gain about another 45 minutes. When Rob went to go ask the patrol officer guarding the highway entrance about said little highway, he LAUGHED at us. Seriously, it's no wonder nobody likes the cops in Wyoming! Great customer service, buddy! Jerk.
Now we're stuck at a Flying J in the middle of nowhere with fifty million other truckers and travelers, all waiting to see if the road will open. Well, we hear that they are rerouting everyone through Casper, which is up and around, and back through Cheyenne to Laramie. About a four hour drive. Well we don't know when they'll open up the road to Laramie, so we take our chance and off to Casper we go!
It's like 10:30 by now, and we don't have anymore time to waste, so we get on this dinky state highway, and start on our way up to Casper. Sidenote: about 2 hours into this drive, we find out the road from Rawlins to Laramie opened. Oh well, we were already on our way so we just kept driving!
We took a pit stop in Casper, and here's some pictures to prove it!
Super blurry, sorry! We were going through a traffic light. :(
Stopping for lunch at Subway and Rob stretching out his legs.
Alright, so we were on our way back southward to Laramie now. Long story short, it was a boring drive, but faster than the dinky highway because we were on a freeway now. Woohoo! PS. Wyoming is the windiest state I've ever been to! See, look:
Rob fighting the wind at yet another dinky gas station. Oh and where am I, you ask? Sitting in the car making the men do all the work. :)
Alright, more longest-story-ever made longer, we finally make it to Laramie around 3:00 -- note that this is 24 hours later than we had originally anticipated arriving. Also, remember how I told you that my only job all year long is to act as the host to this conference? Well, I was the VERY LAST PERSON to arrive at the hotel. Yeah, I'm just going to call it super fashionably late. :(
By now, we had missed all the business meetings and presentations, and all that was left was the final banquet. SO...I had three hours to prepare the banquet, get into uniform, prepare the reception room, and mentally prepare myself to greet a 3 star general, our guest speaker. Needless to say, I was sweating a LOT.
Luckily, when Major Gen Burg arrives, he is super nice and is really excited to be there (even though we offered to him that he didn't need to come because of the bad weather). Here's a picture of me with the General, as well as the others that helped plan the conference.
L to R: Amber Bartelt (SW Region Pres), Me, Maj Gen Burg, C/Kelsey Smith (ARCON Commander), and C/Shon Reckard (Area Commander)
I also got a picture with Brig Gen Dick Bundy (Ret) who is a our Executive Director for our two organizations. He's pretty darn awesome.
So the banquet happens, and it runs pretty smoothly, all things considered. There were lots of mistakes that happened that I probably could have fixed had I been there the whole time but we had to prioritize and work with what we had. After the banquet, we sent Gen Burg off, and then we all changed into our costumes for the masquerade ball. Apparently, I forgot to tell the representatives from the two national staffs about bringing costumes, so this is what they came up with.
Yes, those are sheets off of their hotel room beds. Way to think on your feet, guys.
And this is what I came up with for my costume:
Pretty cool if I do say so myself. I love being super villain-esses.
So that was it. We left the next morning around 9:00 to head home, making a grand total of 15 or so hours in Laramie. We didn't run into any trouble coming home (thank goodness!) other than a little car sickness on my part right towards the end.
Whew. WAY too much adventure for me. I think I'm done for awhile!
So how was your weekend? ;)
3 comments:
Oh Kara, I feel for you. The one time I drove through Wyoming I was lucky enough not to get stuck anywhere...but I can imagine how awful it would be. Just last week I got lost and stuck behind a train and was late for an appointment, and that stressed me to the max. I can't even begin to imagine the stress of being late for something that huge! Thank goodness it all turned out alright!
Oh yes, Rock Springs is a little dinky town with nothing to do, so kudos to you for coming up with something.
My dad used to work there, and he'd take his trailer and some weekends we'd go stay with him to visit. It was hell. LOL
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