Driving, day 2
Left Elko in the morning, still took 3 hours to get out of the state. Nevada wins the award for most boring state ever. Even if Utah does have signs warning about drowsey driving and wheel arcs off the side of the highway.
The salt flats are just odd to drive through. Like Nevada miles of nothing leading off into mountains. The nothing in Utah is grey and vaguely shimmering, unlike Nevada where it's brown and not at all shimmering.
Cleared Salt Lake City, not much to see from the highway. Immediately went UP and soon was over the border into Wyoming.
Wyoming is beautiful country. You start to see grass and ground cover (with horses and cows contentedly cropping it), especially when you cross the continental divide. I'm not sure if it's me knowing that I'm up high or a real feeling, but you feel like you are on top of the world and everything stretches out from you in huge panoramas. Different from Nevada and Utah in that there's variation. Wyoming rises and falls, both macro- and microscopically.
Stopped for the evening in Cheyenne. I was up for pushing on, the person with me wasn't. This means that I'll be getting home in the middle of day 4, which isn't that big a deal. I still have 2 vacations days I requested that I'll be at home before I have to go back into work. Trip will end up costing slightly more than I expected, but I'm not that worried about it.
In contrast to the natural beauty of Wyoming, the people... aren't. While I'm used to being taller than most people, when I was in a WalMart picking some stuff up, the people were not even close to me in height, bar one I saw. For that big a crowd, I'd expect to see more people close to my height. The young cuties, that is to say the hostesses and waitresses, at the local chain restaurant we stopped at for dinner were young, but not cute.
On the other hand, said local chain restaurant was full (we were the first ones on the waiting list during the dinner rush), and I could hear myself think the whole time. I have seriously never encountered quieter crowds. Even the child in the next table over, when it yelled during the meal, was quieter in its yelling.
Overall, I'd deal with the lack of cuteness in exchange for the wonderful scenery and the quiet.
Except, of course, I need what I call civilization to survive. By that, I don't mean the cultural trappings of large crowds of people - clubs and food, rare goods and special services. I mean the ability to find a new job. I have, on several occasions, had a need to find new work. The area I live in has a large number of people (with the corresponding large number of available jobs).
More importantly, it has different industries. So while a town like Kansas City might seem appealing since they have a lot of jobs from Sprint and MCI, when the phone industry as a whole crashes, there's a lot of unemployed people looking for a small number of jobs. While we didn't do as well as other cities during the Internet boom, we didn't bust as bad either.
Since I work in technology and now technology management, I don't need to be in an industry specific city. I've worked in a few different industries since my target company is one that has computers and needs them working/fixed/managed and sometimes I've had to be a bit less picky than I'd like about taking jobs.
Overall, I like the work philosophy this engenders. It's pretty easy to find something when you need a job and while there's a lot of competition to move up... I can live with that. To me, the hard part is getting your foot in the door.
Not that I worry about this because I want to switch jobs... but you never know. I've seen enough things happen to want to keep my options open. Even if my current employer is on a tear, there's always the next transition in business with the new model and the chance to blow the transition.
Regardless, Wyoming does not, as far as I see, have the requisite population centers to supply the environment I want for work.
I'd consider retiring here except (1) I notice the cold more as I get older and (2) nothing is near anything. While I wouldn't mind having a small shack with a fast Internet connection I'd also like a grocery store reasonably close and maybe a store or two for computers and games and the like. I guess I've been completely (sub)urbanized.
Luckily the retirement age keeps getting pushed back, further delaying the decisions I'll need to make about retirement.
The salt flats are just odd to drive through. Like Nevada miles of nothing leading off into mountains. The nothing in Utah is grey and vaguely shimmering, unlike Nevada where it's brown and not at all shimmering.
Cleared Salt Lake City, not much to see from the highway. Immediately went UP and soon was over the border into Wyoming.
Wyoming is beautiful country. You start to see grass and ground cover (with horses and cows contentedly cropping it), especially when you cross the continental divide. I'm not sure if it's me knowing that I'm up high or a real feeling, but you feel like you are on top of the world and everything stretches out from you in huge panoramas. Different from Nevada and Utah in that there's variation. Wyoming rises and falls, both macro- and microscopically.
Stopped for the evening in Cheyenne. I was up for pushing on, the person with me wasn't. This means that I'll be getting home in the middle of day 4, which isn't that big a deal. I still have 2 vacations days I requested that I'll be at home before I have to go back into work. Trip will end up costing slightly more than I expected, but I'm not that worried about it.
In contrast to the natural beauty of Wyoming, the people... aren't. While I'm used to being taller than most people, when I was in a WalMart picking some stuff up, the people were not even close to me in height, bar one I saw. For that big a crowd, I'd expect to see more people close to my height. The young cuties, that is to say the hostesses and waitresses, at the local chain restaurant we stopped at for dinner were young, but not cute.
On the other hand, said local chain restaurant was full (we were the first ones on the waiting list during the dinner rush), and I could hear myself think the whole time. I have seriously never encountered quieter crowds. Even the child in the next table over, when it yelled during the meal, was quieter in its yelling.
Overall, I'd deal with the lack of cuteness in exchange for the wonderful scenery and the quiet.
Except, of course, I need what I call civilization to survive. By that, I don't mean the cultural trappings of large crowds of people - clubs and food, rare goods and special services. I mean the ability to find a new job. I have, on several occasions, had a need to find new work. The area I live in has a large number of people (with the corresponding large number of available jobs).
More importantly, it has different industries. So while a town like Kansas City might seem appealing since they have a lot of jobs from Sprint and MCI, when the phone industry as a whole crashes, there's a lot of unemployed people looking for a small number of jobs. While we didn't do as well as other cities during the Internet boom, we didn't bust as bad either.
Since I work in technology and now technology management, I don't need to be in an industry specific city. I've worked in a few different industries since my target company is one that has computers and needs them working/fixed/managed and sometimes I've had to be a bit less picky than I'd like about taking jobs.
Overall, I like the work philosophy this engenders. It's pretty easy to find something when you need a job and while there's a lot of competition to move up... I can live with that. To me, the hard part is getting your foot in the door.
Not that I worry about this because I want to switch jobs... but you never know. I've seen enough things happen to want to keep my options open. Even if my current employer is on a tear, there's always the next transition in business with the new model and the chance to blow the transition.
Regardless, Wyoming does not, as far as I see, have the requisite population centers to supply the environment I want for work.
I'd consider retiring here except (1) I notice the cold more as I get older and (2) nothing is near anything. While I wouldn't mind having a small shack with a fast Internet connection I'd also like a grocery store reasonably close and maybe a store or two for computers and games and the like. I guess I've been completely (sub)urbanized.
Luckily the retirement age keeps getting pushed back, further delaying the decisions I'll need to make about retirement.