Westward to Colorado
Well after our very nice stop in Kentucky our next objective to this trip was to get to Denver to Raytheon Polar Services and sign our contracts for our ’07-’08 Ice jobs. It is a two day trip from Lexington to Denver, so we drove a little further on Day 1 so that we could arrive in CO before the RPSC offices closed for the day.
Tuesday – Lexington, KY to Topeka, KS (well it actually was Junction City, KS but how many of you would know where that was??? Wait a minute, with a show of hands, how many of you even know where Topeka is????) Back to the story.
The trip across KY, IN, and IL was uneventful and we arrived in St. Louis, MO around noon. So we decided to take a small detour to the St. Louis Arch. The arch is located right on the Mississippi River in the heart of the city. So we got two milestones done at once. We didn’t go up in the Arch, but we toured the museum and walked around in the park outside. And then on our walk back to the car I took a moment to stick my hand in the Mississippi River. So now I have seen it and touched it. It resembles the consistence of a farm pond on Vermont Hill Road. Very muddy and murky. But I have now done that.
And FYI it is really hard to get a photo of the Arch unless you are a mile away. So I went for the Artsy look. I thought Beth would like that.
And again with a show of hands, how many people thought the Arch was made of concrete? Well it isn’t, it is stainless steel plate welded together. So this thing will be around allot longer than Lavocat’s or Ralph’s Ford’s will!!!
We then jumped back on I-70 and drove across MO with a nice stop at Hardees for dinner. Did you know that with just air conditioning that you can cool the inside of a building to -27F? These people in Hardees were tough, and we have both done a stint in Antarctica and we couldn’t handle it inside of there. As we drove west towards KS we got to watch a beautiful sunset on the horizon. The photos don’t do it any justice but it was spectacular.
Wednesday – Junction City to Denver. After a short stay at the Junction City Wal-Mart we picked up and were off to Denver. We made good time and we arrived at the office at about 4:30. We met with HR and they had our contracts to sign and a stack of paperwork to fill out for each of us. We immediately knew that we would not be able to complete out medical PQ process while we were in town. Which is really annoying, but I will get to that later. After leaving the office we decided to stay at Cherry Creek State Park for the night. This is a nice State Park that is right in the metropolitan area. It is a large man made lake with several square miles of wilderness surrounding it. It was a nice convenient place to stay due to it’s proximity to RPSC and it had showers. Showers are good.
Thursday – Denver. We slept in a little before we made our trip to Labcorp for our drug test. You quickly learn not to drive during prime time in the Denver area, so sleeping in was a good thing. After our Pee Test we went back to RSPC to meet with whomever would talk to us. I had a good meeting with Andre, a fellow Lieutenant in the Fire Department. He help me finalize my airfare and trip to Salt Lake City for training next month. And he also introduced me to the new Fire Chief for the Antarctic Fire Department which also went well. Paula met with Pauleen, the supervisor for Crary Lab where she will be working this year. She also got to meet several other new co-workers and they showed her the secret handshake and password. You all know about those Science types, they have a little secret club that they don’t allow us simple people in, and they won’t even admit that the club exists. But I am on to them, and I will expose the club someday.
So after meeting our new co-workers we had free lunch on Raytheon. We know how to pick the right days to show up at the office. They were having a luncheon for all of the employees and my years of drafter training taught me how to sniff out free food. So we stuffed our faces and snuck out the back, Whittmeyer style.
Today we are in Basalt, CO, near Aspen, CO, visiting a friend from the Ice. But that is a store for the next installment of ‘The Three Hour Tour’.
Stay Tuned.R.J.
Tuesday – Lexington, KY to Topeka, KS (well it actually was Junction City, KS but how many of you would know where that was??? Wait a minute, with a show of hands, how many of you even know where Topeka is????) Back to the story.
The trip across KY, IN, and IL was uneventful and we arrived in St. Louis, MO around noon. So we decided to take a small detour to the St. Louis Arch. The arch is located right on the Mississippi River in the heart of the city. So we got two milestones done at once. We didn’t go up in the Arch, but we toured the museum and walked around in the park outside. And then on our walk back to the car I took a moment to stick my hand in the Mississippi River. So now I have seen it and touched it. It resembles the consistence of a farm pond on Vermont Hill Road. Very muddy and murky. But I have now done that.
And FYI it is really hard to get a photo of the Arch unless you are a mile away. So I went for the Artsy look. I thought Beth would like that.
And again with a show of hands, how many people thought the Arch was made of concrete? Well it isn’t, it is stainless steel plate welded together. So this thing will be around allot longer than Lavocat’s or Ralph’s Ford’s will!!!
We then jumped back on I-70 and drove across MO with a nice stop at Hardees for dinner. Did you know that with just air conditioning that you can cool the inside of a building to -27F? These people in Hardees were tough, and we have both done a stint in Antarctica and we couldn’t handle it inside of there. As we drove west towards KS we got to watch a beautiful sunset on the horizon. The photos don’t do it any justice but it was spectacular.
Wednesday – Junction City to Denver. After a short stay at the Junction City Wal-Mart we picked up and were off to Denver. We made good time and we arrived at the office at about 4:30. We met with HR and they had our contracts to sign and a stack of paperwork to fill out for each of us. We immediately knew that we would not be able to complete out medical PQ process while we were in town. Which is really annoying, but I will get to that later. After leaving the office we decided to stay at Cherry Creek State Park for the night. This is a nice State Park that is right in the metropolitan area. It is a large man made lake with several square miles of wilderness surrounding it. It was a nice convenient place to stay due to it’s proximity to RPSC and it had showers. Showers are good.
Thursday – Denver. We slept in a little before we made our trip to Labcorp for our drug test. You quickly learn not to drive during prime time in the Denver area, so sleeping in was a good thing. After our Pee Test we went back to RSPC to meet with whomever would talk to us. I had a good meeting with Andre, a fellow Lieutenant in the Fire Department. He help me finalize my airfare and trip to Salt Lake City for training next month. And he also introduced me to the new Fire Chief for the Antarctic Fire Department which also went well. Paula met with Pauleen, the supervisor for Crary Lab where she will be working this year. She also got to meet several other new co-workers and they showed her the secret handshake and password. You all know about those Science types, they have a little secret club that they don’t allow us simple people in, and they won’t even admit that the club exists. But I am on to them, and I will expose the club someday.
So after meeting our new co-workers we had free lunch on Raytheon. We know how to pick the right days to show up at the office. They were having a luncheon for all of the employees and my years of drafter training taught me how to sniff out free food. So we stuffed our faces and snuck out the back, Whittmeyer style.
Today we are in Basalt, CO, near Aspen, CO, visiting a friend from the Ice. But that is a store for the next installment of ‘The Three Hour Tour’.
Stay Tuned.R.J.
posted by R.J. at 4:34 PM
7 Comments:
Not sure what's worse... a picture of RJ's butt in this blog entry... Or those horrible creatures in the previous post... yes, you know who I'm talking about.... I'll give you a hint... they haven't seen the light of day in about 20-some years... they're white as ghosts.... Guesses???? (drum-roll please) They're..... RJ'S LEGS!!!!
Vermont Hill Road ponds are not muddy and murky! Okay, maybe just a little bit. . . if it hasn't rained in 10 days . . . and the algae on top isn't too thick!
Nice shot of your butt, RJ! You should consider joining the Chippendale firefighter calendar for the Antarctic! How do they shoot those men? In two layers of ECW or three?
BTW, RJ and Paula what will you two be doing for compensation on the ice?
I agree with GW, those legs are whiter than a Barry Manalow fan club member.
Ok Anonymous, At least GW was willing to identify himself. I don't mind being attacked, I just let to get revenge.
WOW! What a start to your trip. Playing with dogs, mixing liquid manure and even Corn hole & KY. Then dining at hardees – you hobos sure know how to live large. That third picture of the arch is absolutely stunning and I am going to steel it.
Nice arch photos. I'm not commenting on R.J's legs.
to bad you didn't have your cordless sawsall, stainless is bringing big bucks at the scrape yard.
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