Casper, WY

I figured I would update my blog since I'm confined to sitting on the bed in our hotel room. Andy found a frog at the river today, and decided to bring it home. Well...now we can't find it. So instead of risking finding it with my foot, I think I'll just wait for him to come home

and look for it.:) But I wanted to blog about the town we are in now. We moved from Lander a little over a week ago and came here to Casper. I must say, this is DEFINITELY my favorite place in Wyoming so far. There is so much to do here!! We've floated the river three times, gone for a little hike to a waterfall, they actually have normal stores here to go shopping in (Yay!!), and there are lots of other sales reps and technicians here, so we have lots of socializing to do. And they even have good radio stations! This made me SOO happy ha ha.

I've missed music! But my two favorite things we've done have been floating the Platte river and our mini hike. Floating the river is so relaxing, and a nice opportunity to work on my tan. At one spot in the river there are some pretty awesome man-made rapids. The first time we went on them there was so much water in the river that the rapids were HUGE! We for sure needed life jackets, but we were already on the river so... They really were kind of scary, but that's what made it so exciting! Today when we went the water level had dropped about a foot, so it wasn't as fun. But

yesterday we went on a hike (it was more like a trail) up to a waterfall. It was beautiful! Then we climbed up the waterfall and sat and looked at an amazing view!! I'm sad that we are leaving here soon. Tomorrow is our last day here, then we pick up and move to Cheyenne. Hopefully I like it just a much.

My no good, very bad day

So Thursday was definitely NOT the best day of my life. You know how you have those days where you just want to throw your hands in the air and shout "I give up!" and then run and hide under your covers until the day is over? Ya, it was that kind of day. So stupid little things happened that morning that weren't Earth shattering, but just kind of made me think "bummer". Like the fact that this hotel doesn't have a blow dryer, and that I lost my make-up somewhere along the move. And then when I went to make lunch I found that all our meat had gone bad because the ice in our cooler had melted faster then I thought it would. Then we found out that Andy hadn't gotten a second interview at Syracuse Fire Department when he felt so sure he had done really well in his first one. So our day was just kind of a bummer day, but we were grinning and baring it! Then around 1 pm we got called to a job, so we gathered all our tools and headed out. So we are driving down the road at MAX 45 mph and my hood starts to bounce!! So Andy hits the breaks, but not before the hood catches another wind and flies completely open, snapping off the hinges that hold it on to my car and breaking my windshield. I scream because it scares the junk out of me, and he hurries and pulls to the side of the road. We get out to look at it, and my hood is SO mangled, and barely even attached to my car. My windshield is cracked along the bottom too. We both kind of stood there dumb-struck thinking to ourselves "What in the....?!" We have no clue how it happened! We haven't looked under my hood in at least a month!! Not really knowing who or what to be angry at, we shrug our shoulders and get back in the car and head back to the hotel. So yesterday we go to a mechanic that was recommended to us by a local and he tells us that to get it back to its original state it will be over $1,100.00 Say what?! Um I think I will just drive without a hood for awhile sir. And we left. So then Andy calls his mechanic at home and he says he found us a hood for $120 and he wouldn't charge us for labor. Woohoo!! So we just ripped the hood off my car the rest of the way, and we get to drive five hours home Monday to get it fixed, then five hours back. Dang. But we get our car fixed for a good price, so it's worth it! So needless to say, I'm so glad Thursday is over!!!!

On To Lander, WY!!

Lander, WY...not much to say about it! We just got here yesterday, so we haven't had a chance to see much of the town. Like every other town here in Wyoming, it's pretty small. There are a few things I really like about Wyoming, and one of them is how many old buildings there are here. You know when you watch a movie that's set back in the 50's and you kind of wish things were still like that? Well here (especially in Lander) things pretty much are. Like the movie

theater sign is one like I've only seen in movies where it sticks out over the top of the entrance and has the blinking lights going all the way around it. I got a kick out of that. And everything just seems really small town and everyone knows everyone. You can walk down main street and walk into these old shops that people still own and run.

Of course i'd never buy any ofit because it's all stuff that has actually been there since the fifties and looks like it hasbeenpreviously used, but it's still fun to go in and look around. Things like those old porcelain cats that old ladies collect are a hot item in this state. We are staying at the Frontier Inn which is kind of fun. It's set up like a fort! And it's all made out of wood (even the bed frames) and they have bears and horses and lots of different silhouettes of animals all over the place. It definitely makes me feel like we are in cowboy country! Andy really wants a cowboy hat so he can fit in, and I think I'll surprise him with one because he looks pretty darn cute in them!!