SNutizzle

This has the potential to be a long blog. I don't want to waste up too much space, so I am actually going to post an extended version to myspace later, and you can read there if you really want all the juicy details.

www.myspace.com/SNutizzle

SO! Here we go. First off, the drive here was disgusting. The first day I drove 15 hours. It wasn't horrible. I thought it would be worse. I made it almost the whole way through Kansas when I stopped and spent the night at an Econo Lodge that was like trucker central. I hid in my room from the moment I got there until I left the next morning. I took a heavy dose of Tylenol PM to sleep through the hillbilly picnic they were all having out back too....

Day 2. The second I sat down in my car again at 6:30am my ass was like "hell no you are NOT sitting in this car again, are you?" That day sucked so bad. Colorado is beautiful once you get past Denver, which looked like the smog capital of the world. However, once you struggle through the mountains and million areas of construction, you start to hate that state with a passion. That is, until you get to Utah. Where there is absolutely jack shit to see for the entire 5+ hours. When I hit 15s and finally saw Nevada....well I can't explain the joy that I felt in my heart. It was seriously like no other feeling. THEN I started to see the strip. I actually had tears in my eyes, I was so excited and so grateful to finally be here.

So as you ease closer to Vegas, there are a lot of adult store signs, hooker truck displays, signs that say "do NOT pick up hitchhikers, prison nearby," and a whole slew of other things that you just don't see when you're a small town girl from Ohio.

My first 4 nights in Vegas were by myself. I started the drive on a Tuesday and Dave stayed behind to finish the banking quarter, and then left Saturday. By the time I got here, I really tried to hide how bad the drive sucked, because 30 hours is obviously no walk in the park, but I felt at least I didn't really have any fore-warning of it, so it was kind of an adventure to me. I didn't want to ruin it for Dave, but I knew he'd hate it as much as I did, but I just kept it to myself and talked him through the trip via phone whenever he could actually establish any cell signal. We both agreed that if we hate it here and it doesn't pan out, we will hire a moving truck and sell both our cars to move elsewhere. Let's just hope that doesn't happen.....we're never making a drive like that EVER again.

So in my first few nights in solitary confinement, with 2 dogs and no furniture....I went on some adventures. Mainly I went out driving. I never knew my way around the downtown of Columbus, and quite frankly always felt directionally retarded. There was no way I was going to live in Las Vegas and not know how to get anywhere.

My favorite things are driving at sunset toward our condo, which is in Northwest Vegas....the view of the mountains is stunning. My other favorite thing is at night, driving toward the strip. We can hop on Spring Mountain road, or Flamingo and just cruise the whole way to the strip. We can be there in less than 15 minutes (there are a lot of lights on the way).

I mostly drove to and from the strip in as many different routes as I could, to get used to all the pathways. Ask Billbell (he was visiting for a few of these days), I drove him every which way from the condo to the Rio for WSOP and to Harrah's where Bulldog and Chef were staying. Everytime I went out, I would take note of restaurants, casinos, attractions, stores, etc. It was a true education of a new city, completely self-exploratory.

The last thing I will say about our beginnings here is that we could NOT have chosen a more parallel area to Dublin Ohio if we had tried. We live in Summerlin and just up the street from our place is an area called Boca Park. Everything looks like Muirfield and Perimeter Loop, to a T. I kid you not. The Boca shops are actually way upscale for Dublin.....there is also a twin to Easton Town Center....called Las Vegas Towne Center (surprise). If you walked through it, you would swear on your life you're at Easton.

So I feel we live in a great, safe area. The difference is that there's sun here everyday (we have had one cloudy day in the 20 days I've been here), we have a pool, a workout facility, we don't have to take care of any yard and we really put hardly any miles on our cars because we hang out close to home for now (until we have $$ again lol) and there is tons to do right around every corner. We live 2 miles from Red Rock casino, which we have yet to check out, and 1 mile from Sunboast.

SO. To wrap up part one, so far everything is peaceful and happy here. I am still seeking employment, but meanwhile have enjoyed my usual lazy teacher summer.

There will be part 2 after I run out and do a little grocery shopping. There is only so long I can sit on the computer and remain sane