New and old friends

Sleep!!!!! I had made contact with a guy that one of my colleagues at ReefComm had asked me to deliver a CD to and had arranged for Rick and his boyfriend, who was visiting from Pennsylvania, to come pick me up at midday the next day. This definitely gave me permission for a delicious sleep-in that I thoroughly enjoyed. I spent a little time later that morning basking in the glorious Nevada sun out near the pool. I noticed one of the side benefits of my little US drive was that driving arm tan was evening up. The way I was going, though, I soon would be browner on my left arm.

Just before 12pm, I got a message from Rick saying he was out the front of the hotel. What a fun and gorgeous young man!!!! (We worked out we are pretty much the same age :) ) And he and Don are so cute together. Anyway, we head off to centre strip and went for a wander through The Cosmopilitan (where Rick used to work), Bellagio and Aria Resorts. Absolutely stunning - and very classy. We stopped for a cocktail and some sweet potato chips (I had a black cherry/meringue concoction which looked and tasted very much the science experiment -but very delicious).

We strolled all over and it was great to have my own personal tour guide who could point out things I would otherwise miss. There were also little stories behind certain designs that too readily apparent, such as a little bar that is in an Alice in Wonderland theme, where the roof design actually depicts the underside of Alice's skirts.

In the Cosmopolitan there is a three story bar which an amazing pink crystal backdrop made up of I think over 5 million crystals. Absolutely amazingly beautiful!!!!! We also wandered through the Ballagio butterfly and botanical gardens. I must say that spring is a fabulous time to visit Las Vegas. I finally got to see all the open-air tulips that we didn't see in Amsterdam because we were there in winter.

As Don was only visiting for a couple of days, I lefty the guys to spend their time together - I really appreciated that they took the time to show me around - and went for a further explore of the Strip. All I can say is that it was gaudy, lavish and expensive. I played the slots, drank an overpriced cocktail and wandered through the streets of New York, New York. Vegas really is a place that would be so much more fun sharing with your best friend! After an expensive and over stimulating afternoon, I headed back to home base for the most amazing southern fried chicken and slaw EVER!!! Quite reasonably priced compared to the strip and utterly delicious, I found another one of my favourite meals...

I hung out in the bar and had a few nightcaps and tried unsuccessfully again to win my millions. i met some interesting people to chat with, but pretty soon called it a night. (Go party animal, you!!!)

The next morning saw an early start and an early drive to Las Vegas airport. Yes, I got lost. Yes, I drove around the airport in circles many times. But I did manage to find my way to domestic arrivals and just as I was indulging in my tourist action of photographing the slot machines you can play whilst you're waiting for bags to be unloaded, I heard Rhonda calling out and here was my friend who had flown out from Tucson, Arizona, for the day.

Rhonda and I used to work together at Cape York Partnerships probably almost 10 years ago. It was so great to see her!!!!

First stop was breakfast at the American institution that is iHop. Very delicious, if not extraordinarily large, breakfast with bottomless cups of coffee and lots of catching up. I can't imagine anyone eating three meals a day over there - that breakfast could have technically carried me for the week!

With a whole 24 hours to play, we decided to head up to the oldest part of Vegas, Fremont Street. Of course, it was still really early and the place was pretty empty. During the night, Fremont Street would come alive with some sort of sky show projected on the roof arching over the street. Alas, time restraints permitting, we just took a stroll, encountering the Heart Attack Grill and the Oldest Working Casino in Vegas. It was still early, but that cocktail sure did taste fine!!!

When we got back to the car, we had a Holy Crap moment. We suddenly realised that we ad been there for 4 hours!!!!! Surely not possible, but it made us plan the rest of our day a bit better. We attempted to hit a couple of thrift and dollar stores, as I was on a souvenir and suitcase to take back said souvenir hunt, but some of the the places were decidedly dangerous looking, so we headed back over to the northern strip to explore the Wynn, Venetian and Caesar's Palace Resorts. We wandered through at what I thought was a reasonable pace, stopping for a cocktail. The Venetian is gorgeous, definitely one of my favourites! Anyhow, as we had to make sure we got to New York, New York in time to pick up our tickets for Cirque du Soleil and have some New York-style pizza for dinner, we were really watching the time. We looked at our phones and suddenly realised that we had managed to walk explore three gigantic hotels in a mere 30 minutes.... Surely not possible! But the clock doesn't lie, so we decided we were having some sort of time warp and as we were so quick through the resorts, we had time to head up to Circus,Circus to see the acrobats flying across the ceiling as you play slots underneath.

Word to the wise....never, EVER, think that walking any distance down the strip will be a little stroll. I actually knew this. But when Rhonda said, Lets leave the car here, it's only the next hotel up, I said 'ok'. Just remember that Nevada is in the desert. It truly felt like we were wandering lost in this said desert for three days!!! One block amounted to the distance of I'm sure the entire length of the Tour de France and when we finally reached to old, shoddy exterior of our destination, it surely looked like a long sought oasis...

We dragged ourselves to the bar and croaked for alcaholic sustenance. Rather than pay for drinks, we decided to put $10 in the slots and get complimentary drinks. The cocktail waitress took our order and I put $10 in the machine, followed by another $10 while we were still waiting. Rhonda sent me off to watch the short circus performance upstairs whilst she waited. I returned after a while, expecting Rhonda to join me with the drinks but the waitress never returned!!!! We were $20 poorer and no drinks!!!!! Stupid Las Vegas!!!!

We made our way back down the the other hotels where we had parked our car. I'm not sure what Rhonda was thinking, but I was wishing I still had my 20 bucks to shout us a cab ride back to the car.... We made it back and headed straight to New York, New York as we had now overshot our time and were now running late to do everything we wanted to do before that night's show.

I hate being late and rushing. I am the girl who leaves for work early even though it is 12 minute drive if I drive fairly slowly...and here I was slightly panicked whilst navigating the Las Vegas Strip.

The trick to driving on the Strip is not to look at anything. It is Soooo easy to get distracted by all the flashing lights and odd people getting up to crazing antics, it is really an accident waiting to happen. So with my horse blinkers on, we drove the Strip and raced to get a car park in the multi-story attached to New York,New York. As we were racing into the Hotel, I pulled out the paperwork for the show and with cries of joy, I said to Rhonda, the show is at 7.30!!!!, not 7pm as I had thought. Phew, we had an extra half an hour!!

We picked up our tickets quite promptly (the line the day before had been horrendous), and ordered our delicious New York Style Pizza. We were discussing how weird the time thing had been that day, when be both suddenly looked at each other and cried, 'The car clock!!!!!!' As I had had to swap my hire car out in Salt Lake City due to the Maintenance Required light coming and staying on, the clock on the car's dashboard was an hour ahead of Nevada time!!!! As we had been going between both the car clock and our phones all day, that explained the crazy time warp we had been living. We were now crazy early for our show. We nibbled the side of our pizza (when it came out, it was the size of a third of my dining table at home) and then headed over to a little New York-style bar where we were thoroughly entertained by a jazz-style one-man-band doing al the great hits. Really fun!

I'm glad that I can tick a Los Vegas Cirque du Soleil show off my bucket list, but in honesty I probably would have enjoyed one of the other shows much more. I wanted to be thrilled by crazy antics where people were wizzing over my head in all crazy contortions, but Zumanity, although quite exquisite in its sheer controlled athletic forms, was not quite as dynamic as I thought it would be. We did enjoy the show and it was very funny at times, but as I said, I wanted death-defying stunts!!!!

It was a fantastic day spent with Rhonda and I am so glad we caught up. Rhonda had an early flight back to Tucson the next morning, and I need to be out the front waiting for my coach at 0545, so although it was fairly late, we attempted to at least get a few hours sleep.

Break on Through

Now that the conference was over, it was time to head on down to that little old town of Vegas. The drive was great, with the snow-capped mountains keeping me company all the way down to the Arizona border.

One thing that puzzles me in the US is the lack of roadside gas stations/food stops along the interstates. Most of the time you have to completely leave the highway, follow rather ambiguous signs through unknown towns looking for a maccas for a quick coffee/bathroom stop. I'm sure I have spent countless hours driving aimlessly around getting more and more desperate for my caffeine fix, adding hours to an already mammoth drive.

I was absolutely impressed with the Arizona landscape as you cross the border from Utah. Amazingly breathtaking. Unfortunately, the bane of my life was not being able to drive and capture the view on film at the same time. And all the best views were in areas where you are prohibited to stop or there just anywhere safe to do so. You'll just have to take my word for it - it was spectacular - like a mini Grand Canyon...soaring rock faces in hues if orange, gold and chocolate.

The highway only clipped the corner of Arizona and yet again I was in Nevada. It's funny, the USA has become a place where you can only smoke in designated areas - which I must admit includes the entire state of Nevada.

I made my way into Las Vegas. I managed to avoid driving down the crazy busy part of the strip, and found my hotel with ease.

Here, I was plenty surprised. I must admit I got an incredible deal off the net (under $30 a night) for my Off-strip hotel - looking to save some $$$ I figured I could endure a couple of nights in a Vegas-seedy room providing it was safe and clean. Wow. My suite was lovely. Two queen beds partitioned with their own space, a kitchenette and just generally comfortable. There was a free shuttle every hour to and from the strip and a restaurant on site that served some pretty decent food.

Once I had checked in and got a bit organised in the room, I headed out to the shuttle and set off for my first foray into the heart of sin city.

On my ride over, I got chatting with an older English couple who had been in Vegas for 2 weeks and asked them where they thought the best Vegas buffet could be found. They both agreed the MGM Grand. So Off I went.

All glitzy and glam, the strip was definitely a change after the staid Salt Lake. I am understanding that Vegas is still recovering from the 2008 financial downturn, which saw 48% of its staff lose their jobs. There were much fewer people on the streets than I expected.

When I got to the MGM Grand, I sought out the buffet and was rather dismayed that on a Sunday night, they were asking for $35 a head. I just wasn't THAT hungry so I looked around and found a rainforest cafe advertising $16 for a burger, chips and salad which looked really good. Once I sat down and had taken a little time to appreciate the ambience (a live thunderstorm and moving mechanical rainforest animals, I ordered my food and decided to treat myself to a tropical cocktail. I had an option to pay $17 for a cocktail with a souvenir glass, which I declined as I could do without the travelling with glass routine. The meal was enjoyable but I almost died when I got the bill. $29!!! Then I had to add tips...I really should have gone with the buffet.

After a wander around, I had a bit of a flutter with no great joy (those machines are tight - no real winning, even little bits) so I decided to head back to the hotel as I quite frankly was exhausted.

I had a nightcap and played some slots at my hotel which saw me win back what I had already played, so I was somewhat happy when I finally laid down my weary head.

I did have an attempted hustle whilst I was playing the machines. A guy come up and tried everything to let him show me around the time. We had a laugh about how I thought he was trouble, I gave him a cigarette and he finally left me alone.
One thing about Vegas. I know that times are hard, but in my humble opinion, they really have got a crappy business model happening which really isn't doing the town any favours. You see, the mob had it right. Affordable lodgings, meals and entertainment will lure in the masses, who will gamble away what they were going to spend anyway, so everyone wins. As it stands, people still come based on the romantic idea of the playground it once was, but I know for me I was pretty disappointed with the blatant cash grab by all. I'm not sure what you had to do to get a complimentary drink when you are gambling (a well-known long-standing tradition), but I can't tell you how often I ordered a drink which never came and overtipped, never to see that cocktail waitress again...hmmm

Snowflakes in my Hair

After the horrific Boston Bombings on Monday, I'd agreed with my family to get out of SLC on Saturday morning whilst they ran the City's Annual Marathon. I know that it is unlikely anything would have happened, but they were a little worried with my being so far from home and the potential for copycat situations. I must say that I am heartbroken for the victims and all those involved in this terrible occurrence and I hope that those involved will stand together for a quick recovery and the perpetrator/s of this heinous crime be brought to justice.

I took the opportunity to hop into my car (because again I hadn't been doing enough driving) and headed for the hills, namely Park City - the site of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

It was still crazy early, but, hey, I was awake. I started headed out and before I knew it, I was hurtling along the highway at 121klm/hour (80m/h speed limit) in snow and ice. I quietly entered the truck lane and proceeded at a more controlled pace.

I ended up at the Olympic park, where I battled snow and sleet to take a look around at all the ramps. I was quota amused to see they have a summer program where you can go down one of the huge ski slides into a rather large, deep pool. I'd be glad to give that one a miss :) I was there so early that I wasn't able to take a look at the museum, but the location was exciting nonetheless.

I continued on to Park City Main Street. What an enchanting little town! Big fluffy snowflakes were falling and there was a sweet layer of snow on everything. Just as a sidenote, did you know that eyebrows can freeze? Rather an awkward feeling, let me say.

Again, I was there way too early but the benefit to that was that I had the roads all to myself. I took myself up to where the nicest houses are and got some gorgeous photos.

I head back to my hotel as I had woken and gone out so early, and I really needed a nap by this stage! During my visit to the Valley Communications Centre whilst at the Conference, I made a point to introduce myself to the Centre's Director and began an email dialogue with him by email about the exchange program I'm wanting to explore. I asked if it would be possible to visit VECC again before I leave SLC and after some serious security vetting, I had an invitation to visit that afternoon!

Valley Comms is fabulously impressive. All state of the art, lots of room to move around and be comfortable in. They had a table set up with a chocolate fountain and other goodies to celebrate Dispatcher' week. The views from the break room were fabulous!!! Snow capped mountains!

The team I met were really friendly and welcoming. I plugged in and listened to both police and fire dispatch (EMS is through fire) and also spent some time with a call taker who took calls for all emergencies. I guess you would get used to it, but I found that most of the street names have numbers as well as the premises numbers (ie 230 2500 West Street). The accents probably didn't help.

One of the staff support personnel came around to give a little box of nick-nacks (pens, chocolate, stress balls and the like) to say thanks for doing what we do (I got one too!), which was really sweet.

Before I left, I spent some time with a fire dispatcher, Irene, who suggested that I call in to one of their fire stations to say hi on the way back to the hotel. I thought this was a great idea, so after a couple of hours in the centre, I did just that.

The firies, all guys, were having their dinner when I arrived, but were very welcoming and were happy to answer all my questions. Two of the guys are qualified paramedics as well as firefighters and another was in training. They all went together on each and every job (5 officers in total), in both a fire truck and an ambulance. I'd brought some of my little koala bears with me and some QAS keychains, which they were happy to receive.

Suddenly, the buzzer went off and they had received a job. I was ready to say goodbye and get out of their way but they just said 'You're welcome to come with us!' so I jumped in the firetruck and off we went with the ambulance right behind us, lights and sirens ablazing. The case was an older gentleman with an extensive medical history presenting with chest pain. I ended up travelling in the ambulance when they transported the patient to hospital. What was amazing was that there were so many officers attending that there room to move inside, so after I watched initial contact, I headed outside to give the guys room to move.

Once we got to the hospital, we offloaded the patient into his own little ER room, did a handover with a Dr and then made our way to the Emergency staff break room. They had a popcorn machine (like at the movies) and a soft drink machine!!!!!

It had been a long day so I took off back to my hotel once we got back to station. What a greet bunch of guys and I am a little jealous of all the resources the officers and the Dispatchers have.

I had dinner at the onsite Japanese restaurant at my hotel. I ordered a chicken bento box and was astounded when they brought out a tray as big as a briefcase...all for about $8. Crazy! There was a family using the unusually placed indoor swimming pool, so I guess I got dinner and a show...although I could have been spared the Dad in the speedos and the biting smell of Chlorine whilst I ate.

I got a fortune cookie after my meal, which I found very apt in regard to the exchange program that I hope to set up.

It's a Long Way to the Top...

What a crazy couple of days! My apologies for the delay in posting. I've been busy attending conference classes, making new friends and networking with (hopefully) future colleagues.

I enjoyed many of the classes offered during Navigator - coving areas such as Management, Leadership, Stress and some specialist Medical Topics. Sometimes it was difficult to choose which session to go to as there were so many interesting ones on at the same time.

My favourite parts of the conference was our little trip to one of the Emergency Communication Centres here in Salt Lake City, a tri-agency facility that manages all police fire and medical in one centre, and meeting people from all over and learning all the similarities and differences with each service.

The hotel was completely lush. Definitely the nicest place I've ever stayed in. A little intimidating at times. I got a knock at my door one evening and a maid was asking if I wanted the bed turn-down service. I'm sure she would have found me a snuggy and tucked me in I that was wanted but in all honesty, I found it a little weird.

I met some fantastic people. I spent Friday afternoon/evening cruising around downtown and stopped for a delicious Italian meal with one of the girls, Amy, who is from Calgary in Canada. I'm sure we will be friends for a long time to come. I got an invite to a dance club from one of the fire-fighters (described to me as the elegant piano bar 'Keys on Main'. Hmmm, from stories some of the others were telling, there was much drinking and table-dancing. I was in SLC for business purposes, so I declined that one - besides, even 8.30pm has been way past my bedtime here (damn jet lag!). I guess I'll have to make up for fun once I hit Vegas town!

I have made some great contacts with both US and Canadian Comms Centres and look forward to continuing dialogue about setting up an International Emergency Dispatcher Exchange Program. I'm thinking this thing is way bigger than me just wanting to do a year in another country. Almost everyone I spoke to is quite excited by the idea and there were quite a few Dispatchers who would be keen to do an exchange.

The closing luncheon of the Conference was great. We had a very yummy 3 course meal and were thoroughly entertained by one of the local comedians. It was a bit sad when it all came to an end but by all accounts this was the best Navigator Conference so far.

Due to budgetary constraints, I switched hotels on Friday afternoon and have now moved about 5 minutes up the road to a rather cosy hotel near the airport for about a third of the cost. During the move I realised I had another car issue. The maintenance required light came on and was staying on. Knowing that I still have quite a few miles to cover before I am back in LA, I phoned Fox to ask them what I needed to do. Surely in hiring the car for a couple of weeks, they would have to realize that I may be travelling quite a distance and there would be an expectation that the car would work without a hitch for the entire hire time.

I must say Fox Rentals have been fantastic. I had a choice of taking the vehicle to their local repairers or just head over to their SLC office to swap it out with a new vehicle. New, clean car? Ok. So now I am driving a bright red Toyota Corolla, all squeaky clean and even came with this funny-looking contraption that I had an ah-ha moment with...a snow brush/scraper!!!!

This morning (Saturday)', I got up early and drove myself up to Park City, the 2002 Winter Olympics site. It was beautiful drive, and got to dance around (as well as drive in) some fabulous fat fluffy snow. The town is gorgeous, but in my attempt to outsmart the SLC traffic (which in some ways I have found to be just as frustrating as San Francisco and Paris (why did you suddenly stop for no obvious reason on a 110klm/hr thoroughfare for no apparent reason???? Why?), it was way too early in the morning for anything to be open.

I have come back to my cosy room for a rest and to make sure I have some clean socks to put on (laundry time!). I have just got my security clearance to go back to visit at Valley Emergency Comms Centre this afternoon, so a little after lunch I'll head over that way.

If the weather clears for tonight, I'll go for a visit to the SLC planetarium, but if not I won't complain for a reasonably early night. I have a big drive tomorrow at the end of which I will be in the little old part town of Las Vegas!!! I have a friend of mine I used to work with at Cape York Partnerships, Rhonda, meeting me there, which I am really looking forward to, and should be able to catch up with one Steve and Itoshi's friends there too.