Montana Travel Tales: Day 1

I am in Montana on vacation with my family this week. Yes, this has little to do with finding a job or life in New York City but since I'm here, the blog is here too. To set the tone, here are a few photos from  Missoula Farmers' Market.

One is of a paper mache river insect. I learned that it lives in its nymph state for about 2 years but the fun really starts when it busts out of its exoskeleton. For 24 hours, it lives with wings, mates, lays eggs, and kicks the bucket. Since it only has 24 hours to party like a rock star, nature doesn't give it a mouth so no time is wasted eating. Since I am a huge fan of snacks, my face was horror stricken upon hearing this fun fact.

These candy sweet heirloom tomatoes cost $3. Let me be clear: instead of costing $3 each they were $3 all together.  I am not in New York City.

When I checked into our hotel yesterday, the front desk did not have a reservation for our 3 rooms. We came to town this weekend so I could participate in the half marathon tomorrow. Since there are a lot of other people in town for the run, hotels are booked up.

This was a problem but I could make it less of a problem by remaining calm.

"Well, for now, it sounds like this will all work out since you have a room and I'm the only one here so far. When the rest of my family arrives, they will be expecting to check in since we made the reservation several months ago. You have awhile since their flight is arriving late tonight. Can you figure something out?"

He promised to try. I promptly feel asleep for 14 hours.

A different problem that was helpful for the hotel room problem is that my family (rooms #2 and #3) missed their connection and spent the night in Denver. This meant the hotel had more time to find 3 rooms for Saturday.

When I was done imitating Rip Van Winkle, a new person at the front desk informed that my dad called the hotel and two rooms were found. As it turned out, the hotel made a mistake in the dates to be in June and not July. It sounded like them finding another room was highly unlikely. 

Before managing facilities for a company that places customer service above preventative maintenance,  I probably would have gotten no-wire-hangers upset.

Months ago! You messed up! Fix it! (old brain)

Now that I've been on the other side of such an outburst, I didn't even go there.

Everyone make mistakes. I'm sure it will work out. Let me know if I can help. (new brain)

I noticed that the woman at the front desk is from the same three-digit population town as my sister-in-law. We played the name game for a few minutes and thanked her for trying to get us a third room.

When everyone returned from the airport, my front desk friend told me that I could keep my room, my dad and step-mom had an upgrade for their troubles, and my brothers had a room on the other side of the hotel. 

Job applications: 0

Networking events: 0

New contacts: 0