05/23/2006 - 3:48 PM

The flight out of Denver to Salt Lake City was a little bumpy, but not too bad. It�s funny to me to take such a short flight when I�m used to flights taking a couple of hours normally. However, to drive that distance through the mountains takes much longer than if you could drive it in a straight shot, so it makes sense. Got my rental car and headed up to Logan, where Matt had been in class all week, and I was really taken by just how beautiful NE Utah really is. I had no idea, and I spent most of the trip just admiring the already green wooded areas and still snow-capped mountains as I drove into the Cache Valley. Logan seems like the epitome of large town/small city in the 21st century, with a quaint downtown area slowly rolling into a big-box retail chain strip. As nice as the town looks, you can see that there isn�t a lot of forward-thinking urban planning, which could become a problem as the population continues to grow.

Matt came out to meet me at my car, and he had a grin a mile wide as he hopped in. We drove around to the garage, parked and unloaded the car, and headed into the campus hotel where he stayed all week. I hadn�t planned on changing, but Matt got me a cool sleeveless USU shirt, so I decided to throw that on as we went exploring on campus.

The campus is pretty typical, with a quad and a mix of classic and modern department buildings, but nothing too distinct. What DOES make it stand out is the view�mountains in almost every direction. I know that I would find myself too distracted if I went to school there, but then again, I�ve gotten used to the mountains here, and life goes on. But to have so many so close, you feel like you want to climb every one of them, maybe even in the same day.

I woke up the next morning and went running through some of the neighborhoods of Logan, and it was a great run. Probably walked/ran about 5 miles or so total, and even got lost when I thought I�d almost made it back to campus. There was a view up by the Logan Temple that was amazing, and I thought that if I was going to live anywhere in town, that would be the spot. Turns out one of the professors that we had breakfast with that morning is moving up there next month. Lucky guy.

Got back to the hotel, hopped in the shower, and headed out to the garage to get the car, and found a flat tire on the rental car. I�ve never had an issue with a rental car before, and leave it to me to have it when I�m in an isolated town, rather than a big city. The rental car company didn�t have any locations up in Logan, but said I could change the flat and head back down toward the hotel where we would be staying outside Salt Lake City to switch it out. Knowing how the company works (since I work for the rental car company�s parent group), I figured that would be the way to go. So we went to breakfast (actually pretty good) and got back to the garage to change the tire. Our original plan was to head up to Bear Lake, but I didn�t want to do anything too fancy on that donut, so we headed back down to SLC instead.

The replacement car and our hotel were both in Layton, so we swapped out the car, and on our way to the hotel, stopped at a Kinko�s to print out our boarding passes for the next day. Mine came out fine, but Matt�s wouldn�t show up. Somewhere along the line, United decided that Matt hadn�t taken the flight out, and cancelled the second half of the itinerary. 10 minutes later, the itinerary was re-instated, but it left a bad taste with both of us. I had to re-assign my seat to get near him, since his original seat was filled.

As a general rule, I like to eat at places I can�t eat at when I�m home, but I had a certificate for a free meal at Red Robin, so we went to the one by the hotel for lunch. Matt had purchased some chocolates for his mom (I swear they were for his mom�almost all of them, anyway), and he wanted to bring them in so they didn�t. Too late�they even had leaked a little bit through the box. Talk about some funky shapes, too. After this, Matt was really in a bad mood. The day just wasn�t going well, and lunch didn�t seem to cheer him up. We headed to the hotel, checked in, and promptly fell asleep for an hour or so. Good choice�we both felt much better after that.

Post-nap, we headed into SLC to check out the downtown area, and once again I was surprised at what I saw. There actually was a lot to do, and it didn�t all have to do with Mormons. We wandered around, looking at buildings and seeing some of the neighborhoods, and ended up at the The Exchange, which is a downtown mall that�s very similar to our Pavilions here in Denver. By the time we�d wandered through, we were starving, and ended up at a restaurant called Dodo. Wow�what a great restaurant. The waitress was cool, the food was great, and even the Muzak was cool. We left full and happy, and after a driving tour of the city at night, we headed back to the hotel to crash.

Sunday morning was pretty uneventful, except for our discovery of a restaurant called Pho Kim Long across from the hotel. For those of you who don�t know, Pho is actually pronounced �Fuh�. So with that pronunciation, say the name of the restaurant out loud slowly, and then fast, and you�ll know why we were laughing for about five minutes over it. We made it to the airport, got our seats upgraded, and made it back to Denver with no hitches UNTIL we got to the car. Can you believe this? Another flat tire. I think I�ve gotten my quota out of the way now.

It�s a busy week, with a lot of little things to do, and the Bolder Boulder on Monday. I�m going home and relaxing tonight after working out with Dre, and probably do some laundry. Maybe I�ll post later, maybe I won�t.

What I'm Listening To: Anastacia - Left Outside Alone

First Word That Comes To Mind: Pho

What I'm Currently Reading: Nothing at the moment