Friendly Budget Travel

Travel is so important. The questions are were to and why are we there. For starters, you’ll have to work with me here. I have managed to slice the tip of my pointer finger off of my left hand last night. I was slicing potatoes and slicing towards me slowly like you should, but then there was this tip on the other side that needed to be sliced, quickly acting, I just nipped the tip, well bad thing is this included my finger on the other side as well. Fun times! Good thing I have a 1/8 doctor in the house, yeeeeaaaaahhhhhh the $40,000 a year student loans are already starting to pay their self off.
Honestly back to the important stuff. What an amazing adventure and enlighten time going out to Utah this weekend. Five of us, which included Natasha, I, Damian (a classmate of Natasha’s that lives in the only other apartment in our building, we have become good friends, share a lot of the same ideas on life, religion, the pursuit of happiness, except he voted for McCain, I’ll work on him, his dad is coal miner, most likely why), Damian’s fiancé Jennifer (she currently lives in Bristol pursuing a degree in photography, she is really good at pictures, we hope she captures that magic shot some day) and Regina (who also is a classmate of Natasha’s, she is from Mobile, AL, has a fiancé that I hope moves up here soon, he likes sports and good beer too). Regina’s brother also flew in from Mobile to join us on this trip as well.
So the trip begins with us five. Jennifer conducted the red eye drive to Louisville, getting us to the end of our 4 and half hour car ride to the airport at 5 am in order to catch the 7 am flight out. It was 3 degrees with snow on the ground when we left. We flew out of Louisville instead of Lexington because it saved us roughly 50 dollars a ticket, totaling to savings of $250. Well worth the extra drive. We fly into Minneapolis (which also is cold and full of snow) and catch the flight to Salt Lake City. We are in SLC by 11:30. We picked up the rental, got an upgrade which we already had a family discounted car from my brother/cousin Big Al, total cost with gas purchase and all of $30 a person for three days.
The drive up to the Wasatch Mountains begins bringing us to the place of stay. This is Rhonda’s and Gary’s home. These are friends we made while working in Utah last year. Natasha met Rhonda as she too worked part time for Deer Valley. She was retired from Delta Airlines where she worked for 28 years. Rhonda and Natasha hit it off early last year because Rhonda is originally from Louisiana and lived some of her life in Southern MS. Gary is originally from Texas and went to Texas Tech; I didn’t rub the Cotton Bowl win in too bad. He also works at Deer Valley one day a week (it is a common practice for people in Park City to also work at the resorts one or two days a week in order to get free ski passes) and works for stock investment firm. He retired from Delta as well with 30+ years. These are amazing people. They let all of us stay for free at their beautiful home. Gary also has put in a new hot tub. This was ammmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzinnnnnnnnngggggg on Friday night.
We then went to get our ski and boot rentals. For all 6 of us (Regina’s brother included) it cost us 7 dollars. That is 7 dollars totalllllllllllll. A girl that is good friend of Natasha’s and mine, works at a place. Needless to say, she hooked us up. We tipped the guy well and everyone was happy. We then went on to ski that day for a few hours for free. All the resorts there have a fly in and ski for free package for your day of arrival. We ate dinner at a swanky but not too expensive pizza place. Our tab was picked up by Natasha’s old boss. Amazing! Afterwards, we were feeling the exhaustion from the 36 hour day.
The nest day we hit the slopes of Deer Valley again. Oh, all sixxxxxxxxxxxx of us skied for freeeeeeeeeeeeee. Kris Anderson, who is the head manager for the food at Deer Valley, had plenty of friend passes and was amazing enough to share them with us. These are Deer Valley $85 passes. What an amazing place this is. Kris and Natasha seemed to hit it off well. Kris is an amazing person and I could and will use a whole entry devoted to her one day. W Damian, on only his second day of skiing, was ready to go. He picked it up so quickly. Almost to the point I was angry at him for being so good so quickly, jealously is so ugly so I let it go. Lunch was at Royal Street Café, a high end lunch spot at mid mountain, 8,500 ft. We enjoyed this, almost to the point where we couldn’t ski in the afternoon but we managed. On to dinner to we went, then back to the place to stay and get some much needed wine and hot tub time. The wine selection in Utah is amazing. The liquor laws are crazy but the wine and beer sure are good.
The next day, Natasha and Jennifer opted out of skiing. Jennifer was feeling the effects of the altitude, cold and travel. Natasha had so many people to still visit. The men would take to the slopes today! Damian and I went back to Deer Valley to up our skill (at least to run every green run). It was a great day, huge snow coming for the last two days. We skied quit hard. We actually did stop for a quick snack and a few beers at Stein Erickson Lodge (this is place I worked last winter). It is a five star, five diamond place. Once again, our tabs were picked up by the head restaurant manager. Nice way to say $60! Oh and I did I mention we skied for free this day too.
Am I getting my point across yet? Needless to say we headed back to SLC at about 10:00 that night, caught the red eye to Atlanta, then back to Louisville that morning. We drove back Sunday to Pikeville and back to work yesterday. It is an amazing thing knowing people all over the place. It is amazing how much people will give, how much people will do for friends. No matter the about of money a person will make, the amount a person will spend on a trip, it will never compare to getting a trip like this. This trip was earned by being willing to explore and meet new people. It is nothing more, then the investment of time and energy into good people. This is made possible by Natasha going to Deer Valley and doing something she never had even tried before and by I traveling to Steins at 8200 ft six days a week willing to work 9 hour shifts of serving in order to have a new experience.
Damian and I discussed the matter greatly. It burns us up when people use the phrase “Oh it must be nice.” This implies that things have been handed to you. That is was sure a gift and not something you created. My mother talks about making decisions in our lives. She talks about how those decisions cause circumstances later. These results can also be such positive results. These results are nothing more than merely taking the challenge of getting out of your comfort zone.
The thing that burns me more about Southeast US than anything is the lack of adventure. The lack of wanting to get out of your comfort zone is simply shocking. I am not in any way saying comfort and staying home is wrong. I just can’t understand why people say they cannot. They don’t “have time” to travel. They don’t “have money” to travel. I do not understand. As a friend, put it to me last night. Our generation does not understand the word no. We have always had we wanted. Now, don’t mistake that for have been “given” what we always wanted. It is the willingness to go out and get it. It does not want the feeling of doing without. Now for some our generation, that has back fired. Why? Simply because, they have mistaken wants for needs. This causing us to feel we need the big house, the new car, and the new plasma TV. These causing a huge over spend which further more has caused a huge economic crisis, where people now can’t afford their wants that were mistaken as needs and millions of stores have invested in a market that cannot survive itself on a regular basis. People were foolishly spending on the newest clothes when last summer clothes are not that bad. It is now they don’t have the money for those clothes now and the stores are stuck thinking this was going to be forever. So back to “It must be nice.” This is a comp out way of saying, you didn’t do anything harder than me, and it is just your circumstance that allowed you do that. It is the lack of want too.
I believe travel better helps people to understand more people in this world. It is not about me, it’s about you and the fact that this world has other people in it. John Mayer once quoted:
“Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8-color boxes, but what you're really looking for are the 64-color boxes with the sharpeners on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64-color box, though I've got a few missing. It's ok though, because I've got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the 8-color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation.. so when I meet someone who's an 8-color type.. I'm like, "hey girl, magenta!" and she's like, "oh, you mean purple!" and she goes off on her purple thing, and I'm like, "no - I want magenta!"”
We need to get our head out of the 8-color boxes and live in the 64. It is a much better world. It makes for a much cheaper trip. If so, why are we here?