A Retreat in Mesquite

Last weekend Justin's company treated us to a retreat in Mesquite, NV.  All the office guys (and one gal) and the superintendents were invited.  We drove down Thursday morning and took a scenic detour between Cedar City and St. George up Kolob Canyons, which is a part of Zion's National Park.  It was a short drive up and the scenery was gorgeous.  The contrast between the red rocks, white snow and green vegetation was stunning.  We ended up taking the only photos of the whole mini-vacation at the top of Kolob Canyons.  

Justin reading the plaque.  His parents would be proud.

Apparently, when Justin was growing up when his family 

would travel they would stop at every roadside historical

monument and have to all get out of the car to read it.

Justin is continuing the tradition with our family.

Me enjoying the sun and warmer weather.

We stayed at the Oasis Casino and Resort.  The economic downturn has been felt in Mesquite and our hotel (motel) had apparently been closed for a few months and then reopened.  The rooms were serviceable, but in need of some renovation and the lighting was inadequate.  We were very glad we'd brought our own pillows.  At least it was free!  We took a short driving tour of Mesquite, which is not large and Justin showed me the tennis courts he worked on two years when he was working for the Tennis Company.  They still looked great.  

Dinner wasn't until 7:30 p.m. and considering that Nevada is an hour behind Utah, it was kind of late for us.  There were about 40 of us and we had a buffet dinner in the building right across from our room.  This was only the third time I'd ever seen any of these people and socializing is not my forté, but it was fine.  The food wasn't any better than I expected.  Justin and I both agreed that the baked potatoes were the tastiest part of the dinner.  At the end of the dinner, Justin's boss Jason gave a little speech and talked about the coming year and the challenges of the economy.  Justin works for Kilgore Paving, which is an asphalt paving company and with the money the state is getting from the federal government for new road projects they should be in good shape if they can get awarded some of the UDOT bids which are coming up in the next 6 weeks.  Jason said that he used to think that over 10 bidders per project was a lot of competition.  Now they are seeing almost 30 bidders per project.  Everyone is in need of work. Justin and I are very glad that he was able to get hired on so quickly at Kilgore last spring after he lost his job at D.C. Transport because his boss found out that he had interviewed for a job with Summit County.  We are now realizing what a blessing it was because Kilgore Paving is currently in a better financial position than D.C.  Transport. Kilgore is a young company having been started about 2001 and Jason Kilgore is younger than Justin.  After his speech Jason gave everyone a box of double dipped chocolate mints from C. Kay Cummings.  I'd never had them before, but they were good!  We had pretty much finished the box by the time we got home.  

The next morning Justin had breakfast at 7:00 a.m. followed by a meeting which was supposed to end at noon, but ended up lasting until 1:00 p.m.  I was given a voucher for breakfast at The Casablanca, the casino across the street.  I also had a 8:30 a.m. massage scheduled at the spa at Casablanca.  I was a bit dismayed at the early hour until Justin reminded me that it was 9:30 our time.  I ended up getting up in plenty of time and had a leisurely breakfast followed by a delightful morning at the spa.  I've decided that an hour spent on a massage table is the most quickly passing hour ever.  After my massage I sat in the eucalyptus steam room and chatted with the wife of one of the junior estimators, then we went outside and soaked in the mineral warming pool and chatted some more.  Then we got our books and helped ourselves to the juice bar and sat by the pool ostensibly to read, but really chatting with three of the other wives.  Before I knew it, it was time to get ready to meet Justin.  It's too bad I didn't know that Justin's meeting was going to run late, because I would have rather spent another hour by pool instead of sitting in our hotel room.  

I checked my cell phone when I got back to the hotel and found a message from my Mom saying that she had gotten locked out of the house.  There went my relaxed mood.  Fortunately, when I got ahold of her it was to find out that Brittney had used my van to take all the kids to swimming lessons the night before and still had my house keys so she was able to unlock the door.  Whew!  After Justin showed up we grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald's before heading over to the Oasis Gun Club for some skeet shooting.  I could have participated but weather had turned a bit cloudy and windy and I opted to sit in the car with my book instead.  It was only the second time Justin had ever shot a shotgun and he ended up hitting 9 out of 50 targets. Shockingly, he didn't have the worst score as another guy hit only 7.  I got out of the car and watched him shoot at one of the stations towards the end.  

Our next activity was going over to the Casablanca and redeeming our $10.00 in free slot play. Neither of us had ever gambled before and it was amazing how quickly our combined $20.00 vanished.  I'm proud to say we didn't spend a dime of our own money.  Dinner was at 7:30 again on Friday night.  The food was better that night.  I think it's pretty hard to ruin prime rib, although the chicken breast I also had was dry.  That night Jason gave another short speech and explained that the retreat was mostly intended as a thank you to all the spouses for supporting his employees, especially when they have to work long hours.  The spouses each received a watch as a thank you gift.  Jason's wife Amber had all the different watches that she had purchased set out on a table and we got to pick out the one we wanted.  

We decided to join some of the other couples in seeing the 9:50 showing of Confessions of a Shopaholic, since we could sleep in the next morning.  We had the theatre to ourselves.  I've read all the Shopaholic books and was a little disappointed that they had changed the setting of the film from London to New York.  I enjoyed the movie anyway.  The next morning we slept in and then attempted to have breakfast at the Casablanca.  The line for the restaurant was so long that Justin proposed getting breakfast at a bakery in Santa Clara that Peter and Britt are always raving about.  We took the back way into Santa Clara, which is a cute little town with lots of pioneer vintage homes.  We found the bakery, Grandma Tobler's without any trouble and I had a delicious orange roll and raisin filled cookie.  Justin opted for a cinnamon roll and some chocolate chip cookies.   We then drove through Snow Canyon, which is a state park.  It's amazing to see the ancient lava flows that left black rock scattered over the red sandstone.  Our next stop was the Mountain Meadows Massacre memorial.  The short trail, which dips down into a gully and then back up, was snow covered and icy, so I turned back  and waited in the car. Justin did the required reading and then we set off for home.  We got back about 4:30 p.m., in plenty of time for Justin to take Blythe's Jr. Jazz team to see the 7:00 p.m. Jazz game.  It was so nice to have a little break from our every day routine and spend some time together.  I'm hoping we get to do this again next year.