New Job

So I got a new job. It was time for a change and this pretty great opportunity came along, so I jumped at it.

I am now the public affairs & communications coordinator for the Salt Lake City office of American Express.

Monday, Sept 29 was my first day. It was pretty awesome. I only managed to embarrass myself a few times. Less than 5. I count that as a definite win.

But in my first two days on the job (along with the info I gleaned from my five interviews and other interactions since the offer a month ago), here is what I have learned:

• My manager is great. She's got a whole 30-day transition plan laid out for me, and it is totally do-able. Turns out the corporate world is much more able to balance work load, and everyone leaves at 5.
• My colleagues are lovely. They got me a nice welcome gift and all signed a card.
• I have a window in my cubicle. I get to gaze at the Wasatch Mountains every day.
• There is a pond with ducks and a waterfall by the cafeteria patio. I ate my lunch there on Monday. Super great.
• The parking lot is huge. I have to remember what row I park in, or I cannot find my car (took quite a while on my first day).
• There is a lot for me to learn. Which is both intimidating and exciting.
• I have two computer monitors again. I was worried I wouldn't be able to handle working with just one again.
• Everyone is really capable. The executive team (who I sit with, what?!) is gearing up for the AmEx CEO's visit to SLC next week (I guess he only comes every couple years) and it has been neat to watch how everyone works. Super on top of it all.
• Everyone I meet is happy. They all love working here.

I am excited for this new opportunity. It was weird to leave the Bennion Center, an organization I have grown to love so much. But this position is such a great next step. Here's to the rest of my time with AmEx being as awesome as these first two days.

15. Find 30 geocaches

A report on one of my items from my 30-before-30 bucket list.

June 7: Found 5 caches in Bear Lake. Went with some first timers, Kate, Jenny and Sarah. Such great hides. My favorite was one that left a little note in the cache to come to the house on the corner for a popsicle. We stopped by, but only the granddaughter was home. We told her we didn't really need a popsicle, but to tell her grandfather (who owns the cache) that we thought it was awesome. Also the view was beautiful! We never would have gone up there otherwise, which is always what is great about geochaching.

Cool monument blending my two homes

Kate's First Cache

June 11: I love when people just get on board. My friend suggested we do a little caching after a late dinner. Mostly because we were thinking about one we had trouble finding the night before. So we took some new people and headed out to find 2 (including the one we had trouble with the night before. Height often helps). 

June 19: Just tried for a couple after dinner with Aubs and Em. Luck finding 1 with some lovely little animal toys. No such luck on another. Too tiny. I'll have to go back. Brings the total to 8 so far.

June 20: Was on Temple Square for a wedding, and grabbed 1 nice micro cache on the way back to the car.

June 25: Before I went on vacation to Hawaii and Washington, I wanted to grab a travel bug to help along its way. So, I called Jessie about 9:30 at night, to see if she was up for it. We found the first one, but the bug wasn't there as it said it would be. So we had to find another cache. Success on the second one and this bug will be headed with me to Honolulu and Seattle. Found 2. Up to 11 finds.

June 28-30: Hawaii!!! I got that travel bug to take to Hawaii, and did a bunch of caching while on Oahu. I found 7 caches during those few days. I was glad to have Shayne and Steph with me for some of them, as they are great finders, and know the drill. I did find some of my favorite caches there. One in a coconut. And one in a water meter container, underneath a fake water control knob at the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Pretty clever. That was also my last cache in Hawaii, and it had a travel bug wanting to go to Canada, so I figured I could get him a little closer.


July 3-4: Orcas Island. I downloaded some caches on the island before getting there, and I'm glad I did, as my cell reception was really spotty. We found 2 on this gorgeous isle. Stopped with the family to find one on the drive to the camp, then also cached on the 4th with cousins and Aunt Terrell who was really excited for it. Left the bug there on the island for someone to find and take back to Canada. At least he could see Canada from this spot. Lovely views along the way.

July 7: We hiked Ensign Peak for FHE. There were 3 caches along the trail up. Some cool finds. One was inside a fake plant. That was a fun spot. Introduced some of the wardies to the geocaching hobby. Brings my total to 23.

July 19: Found a little one on the way back from our Vernal Adventure. Nothing special, but a nice little spot.

July 26: Only found one on my Dakota adventure because of timing, and the fact that you can't hide geocaches in national parks (where we spent most of our time). Nice find in the middle of the beautiful rolling hills of North Dakota.

August 2: Found 2. Out getting sno-cones with Jenn I finally found the closest one to my house. Easy find by the grocery store. Then after dinner with friends, we had a night hike to find one in the rocky area behind a strip mall. Neat hiding place and a cool little cache.

August 16-17: Found 2 on the Lake Tahoe road trip. The first was right next to the awesome Nevada State Museum that used to be a national mint. Pretty cool. The second was in the ghost town, Unionville. Random place, but it was a pretty cool cache with a gorgeous view. Only one left.

September 7: After a lovely Sunday picnic in Liberty Park we started talking about geocaching. Someone else brought it up, I promise. We decided to head over and find the only one in the park. It's such a big park, it surprises me there aren't more. But this one was in a lovely spot bu the bridge. And had a clever way of discouraging muggles:

Nice hide. Great adventure with some new cachers who helped me hit number 30!

Thanks to all of my geocaching partners throughout this adventure: Kate Hubrich, Sarah Christensen, Jenny Day, Emily Cawley, Emil Vasylyev, Aubree Perrenoud, Jessie McKinney, Shayne Holmes, Stephanie Holmes, Trent Holmes, Barbara Holmes, Russ Holmes, Ashley Holmes, Kyle Jackson, Terrell Holmes & Family, LeGrand FHEers, Eliza McKinney, Ariel and Rebekah Wood, Aaron Condor, Jenn Cummings, Blake Eaton and Chase Anderson.

View my geocaching history on my online profile.

12. Do a triathlon

A report on one of my items from my 30-before-30 bucket list.

Monday, September 1, 2014

For whatever reason, I have always wanted to do a triathlon. I hate 5Ks and other races, but the variety of a tri seemed a bit more exciting, so I added this as a goal. I was hoping to do it in the spring, but I found out my friend Sarah wanted to do one this fall. So, she found the South Davis Labor Day Tri, and we signed up a few months ago.

I had a training calendar for the summer, and tried to do as much as I could, but this summer was crazy, so I didn't train as much as I wanted to. The week before the race, I was pretty terrified. Sarah and I talked and decided to do the novice race instead of the sprint race, as it was shorter distance and this was our first tri. That change made me totally excited and a lot less terrified.

We got there early Monday morning, checked in, set up our transition station, and waited. It took 45 minutes for all the sprint people to get in the water before the novice racers even lined up. They let people in the water every 8-10 seconds. Then you swim serpentine style up the pool through the lanes. Sarah went in right before me. We got bottle-necked a little by people who thought they were faster than they were. Then we both got out of the pool at the same moment.

We walked over to the transition. (The swimming portion gave me weird jelly legs, so I couldn't run that transition, even though I really should have.) Put on a little more gear, and hoped on my bike. I so do not have a nice bike, but it is usable, so I went on my merry way. Halfway into the ride, I just thought: "Wow, this is fun. I like this." It got a little harder, but the course was pretty flat so that was nice.

The bike-run transition was pretty easy. I just put my bike on the rack, walked off, them remembered I don't need a helmet to run, so went back and took that off. Then I started the run. I was pretty tired, and running is my least favorite of the events, so I walked most of that portion, with a few sprints thrown in. I felt totally fine about that.

I walked over the finish line, excited and exhausted. Overall, it was a really good race. I usually hate races, but I walked away from this one feeling energized and totally willing to do it again. Join me in 2015!

When I looked up my official time, it looked like the timing chip added 12 minutes to my swim (like it would take me 17 minutes to swim 150 yards!?!), so my first official times were a little off. I think I accidentally walked too close to one of the chip readers before I actually got in the water, as my start-time is listed as 12 minutes before Sarah's. But the glitch was fixed and my official times are:

Swim (150 yds): 5:14.02
transition: 3:26.82
Bike (2.4 mi): 11:29.16
transition: 1:01.25
Run (1.2 mi): 20:53.06
Total: 42:04.33

23. See Mount Rushmore

A report on one of my items from my 30-before-30 bucket list.

This trip turned out to be quite the epic road trip. 2,122 miles in 4 days. Pretty crazy, but so amazing! July 24-27, 2014.

A few months ago, my friend Rebekah was talking about how she is almost done visiting all 50 states. In fact, her and her sister Ariel were planning to hit North Dakota (49) this summer. I asked if they would be visiting Mount Rushmore since it is pretty much on the way. They were, so I invited myself. They were kind enough to have me come along, and it was so awesome.

We truly had no plans. We brought camping gear so we could sleep wherever. We had not scheduled anything before. This always makes room for loads of adventuring.

We started out driving north through Rexburg. Stopped to surprise my sister before she boarded a bus to go home to Boise for the month. She was just waiting on the grass for the bus. Saw her for just a minute, but it was fun to surprise her.

We then headed to Island Park to visit Debbie, our high councilman's wife, at their cabin. She is just so lovely, and she fed us a delicious lunch. Those were the best BLTs I've ever had. We couldn't stop talking about them. She told us we had to stop at Buckaroo Bills in West Yellowstone for ice cream. It was pretty delicious. While there, Ariel said she wanted to go to Old Faithful. Since we had nowhere to be, we took that route through Yellowstone. I haven't been there since I was a kid, but I still remembered a lot of things. Particularly the water falls.

It was a nice stop, but it made it take a lot longer to get to Montana. As we came out of Yellowstone, it was dark, and the next option was a mountain pass, always scary in the dark. Since we were closed to Cody, I called up my old roommate Sara who grew up in Cody and asked her if we could maybe crash at her parents' house that night. She and her parents were more than obliging and put us up in their basement. I have heard so much about Cody, and I was glad to finally see it. Next time I need a real tour from Sara. And I need to go to the rodeo there.

We then spent Friday driving to North Dakota. I also think it may have been my first time in Montana. We drove through the rolling eastern hills of Montana, and it was pretty beautiful. But nothing compared to North Dakota. I had no expectations for the state, as people just have ragged on it forever. But wow. It was amazing.

We wanted to stay in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. As we came up to the park entrance, there was this adorable town of Medora. We decided to drive through before entering the park, and we are so glad we did. Multiple people told us we needed to go to the Medora Musical. So we bought our tickets before heading into the park. We set up camp, then came back out for dinner and the musical.

And it did not disappoint. Seriously, what an awesome, random celebration of North Dakota. Country music, dancing, singing, costumes. They had everything.

The next morning, we rode horses in the Park, and we just didn't want to leave. Lovely people. Lovely scenery. Lovely place. I would totally go back to visit North Dakota if it weren't so far away.

We then headed down to Mount Rushmore, arriving in the early evening. People had told me it isn't as big as expected, so I had again, low expectations, but it was pretty neat. The history of it was so interesting. I had always wondered why it was those four presidents who were chosen. I learned that the monument symbolizes the founding (Washington-1st president), growth (Jefferson-Louisiana Purchase), preservation (Lincoln-unity after Civil War) and development (Teddy Roosevelt-trustbuster, national parks, Panama Canal, national irrigation systems) of the country. We took the walk around the monument and it is just pretty amazing.

These are the large models they used to measure where to blow off the rock.

We also drove past Crazy Horse. It was neat to see that in the process after reading about how they built Mount Rushmore. It still has a long way to go, but eventually. Hopefully.

We then drove North through the beautiful Spearfish Canyon.

As the sun set, we still had no place to stay. But we stopped for food in Belle Fourche, then headed across the border to the KOA at Devils Tower Wyoming. We slept under the stars and awoke to a beautiful sight.

The view from my sleeping bag.

We took the nature walk around the tower in the morning, then started the long trek back to Utah.

Overall it was a terrific trip with good food and great company.

Because of this trip, I am now super impressed with Teddy Roosevelt and all he did before and during his presidency. I really need to learn more. He said, "I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota." Now I understand.