My trip, Part 1

Well, I have been trying to figure out the best way to recount my trip to Colorado for the Denver Christmas Conference (DCC) and Laramie, WY to meet Robert. I guess I will jsut tell it as it comes to mind. It just might be very long and in installments or something! If you read it all, I just might have to do something special. I don't know what, but we'll see, hehe.

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I flew out to Denver on New Years Eve. I had worked that morning, and it had just been insanity trying to get out of town. Lots of little last minute things, on top of trying to make sure I didn't have any problems at the office while I was gone.

My flights were fine, despite the 3 hr layover in LAX and the turbulence on the second leg. My stomach got kinda wierd, but I got over that quickly enough once I got off the plane. I don't know if some mild nervousness was contributing to that...who knows.

So, when I land, I get a call from Robert and he is stuck in a car search. No big. I just waited in the greeting area. There was a gal there all dressed up in New Years Eve garb and we kinda wondered whether she was a paid "escort". It was slightly odd.

I saw Robert and his friend Amanda before they saw me, and so we met. He even brought me some flowers, which kinda surprised me, but he's a very thoughtful guy.

We headed to downtown Denver to ring in the New Year with oodles of people (most of which were tipsy, of course) and watch the fireworks. We met up with Eric and Gentry, who are the directors of Capus Ventures at the University of Wyoming, which is the ministry Robert is involved in. They are really neat people.

After ringing in the New Year watching the fireworks, getting covered in cigar smoke, and sprayed with champagne, we left downtown to head up to Laramie. (While we were downtown, I realized that this was the first time I had celebrated the New Year in such a large crowd--or in any crowd for that matter--it was fun!).

On the way into Laramie, we stopped off the road to get out and look at the stars. I made the horrible mistake of not putting my coat on BEFORE I got out of the car, since it was in the backseat (I live in SoCal and I am not used to this cold weather stuff). It was windy and cold as all get out! Yikes! We got back in the car pretty quickly!

When we got to Laramie, Robert and Amanda dropped me off at Eric and Gentry's house (they had opened up their home for me to stay while I was in Laramie). After getting settled and getting to bed, I think it was around 3 or 4am.

I slept in a bit the next morning and got up around 11:30am and kinda putzed around, just chilling. It was absolutely wonderful to be completely alone without any responsibilities for a little while. I wrote in my journal some and put on some music and worshipped. It was so quiet and peaceful. Positively wonderful.

I then called Robert to let him know I was up and he went to the grocery store to pick up some supplies so I could make some Dutch pancakes for breakfast for us. It was a really nice breakfast. I think I had been slightly nervous before finally meeting Robert face to face, since there was the possibility of things being awkward or wierd at first, but it was totally cool. I don't know if I just hadn't made to many expectations, or what, but he seemed just like I thought he would be like from all our telephone conversations and online chats. The whole trip he was very thoughtful and caring, making sure I was doing okay and having fun, considering I didn't know anyone, and especially considering what I learned the next morning (I'll get into that later).

After breakfast, he took me arond Laramie and showed me the sites. We were going to go to Vedauvoo (I think that's how it's spelled), which is this cool rock formation just a little ways out of town, but it was blocked off. The interesting thing was that there was an SUV stuck in the snow right in front of the blockade. How they managed to do that, I don't know. So we used a tow line or something that someone else had and Robert helped get them out.

Then he showed me around town and showed me where he works at the HoJo. We ended up being there for about half an hour cause the guy that was there got an influx of people coming in. I even helped a little with cutting some breakfast coupons. I figured I'd be useful rather than just standing there doing nothing.

After that we met up with some of the students in CV and had dinner at Arby's or something like that. I kinda felt wierd cause it was all guys except for one girl who is kind of a tomboy, but it was still fun. We headed over to someone else's house and watched "Dazed and Confused" which I had never seen before (there were a lot of things I did for the first time on this trip, as you will see soon enough). Robert left a little after that to go to work and we all hung out a bit, then headed over to the HoJo and used the hottub. I hadn't brought a bathing suit, so I just stuck my feet in. Not terribly exciting.

I think I got to bed around 2 or 3am that night.

Well, I have to get back to work now, and I've only made it through the first day and a half. Sheesh. This is gonna be long.......