As I mentioned in our previous post we have been busy. After our trip to Boston we headed back to Iowa for a short four days of work then we were off on our next adventure to Vegas and NC. Our Las Vegas trip was half business and half pleasure. I learned about the Traveler’s Conference from the very smart man that does my taxes, Travel Tax. He specializes in doing taxes for people who are travelers, expats and full time RVers. The timing was just right since my assignment in Iowa was supposed to end on Sept 23rd so I planned to go to the conference and then take a much needed vacation in NC to visit friends and relax. Driving from location to location is not as relaxing as I would like; I am not at work but I wouldn’t call it a vacation.
We headed back to MSP and since we were there nice and early we were able to have a drink and a snack at the bar in the small forgotten Terminal 2. There are only like two or three airlines that fly out of there and Southwest is one of them. Most of the people at the bar were also headed to Vegas. What was really crazy was that we met a couple at the bar and then saw them in Vegas walking along the strip heading to their brunch. Small world! There was a brief layover in Denver and we landed in Las Vegas around 9pm. At this point we had been in Central time, Mountain time and Pacific time. I think Pacific time is my favorite. There are lots of shuttles at the airport that will get you to your hotel so we found one and headed to Planet Hollywood. After checking in and finding our room we headed out to explore.
We found the area where the conference was going to be, wandered around the casino a bit and found a snack in one of the hotel restaurants. After a day of travel we were pretty tired and all the loud music, bright lights, cigarette smoke and barely dressed people were grating on my nerves so we headed up to our room to get some sleep. Sunday morning the registration booth was open early so we found some coffee and went to pick up our badges and goodies. I attended the Newbie day where they went over a lot of basics about being a traveler. I didn’t sign Jesse up for that day so he went and found some football to watch while I sat and listened to speakers. They were very informative and I learned so much. I was pleasantly surprised that we are doing a lot of things correctly, so that was reassuring. But I also learned that I am probably being big time gypped as far as how much money I could be making. At least now I know so I can be a better negotiator.
I was busy much of the day with talks and a Newbie cocktail hour where I met some very nice nurses. We chatted and laughed about the crazy things that happen at work that no one else would ever understand. Jesse met me there and we went to find some dinner. We ended up going to a restaurant where they had three drinks for $10 and pretty good food. We even took in a burlesque show; we figured while in Vegas might as well do some typical Vegas things. Sorry though… no pictures.
Monday was the official start of the conference and I had signed Jesse and I up for all the talks, the expo and the after party on Tuesday night. They had breakfast for us and a wonderful keynote speaker. She was very funny and spoke about how to be an entrepreneur doing just about anything you already know. Jesse learned some fun tips and ideas for when he becomes a full time personal training guru. I had a lot of really good laughs while I listened to her very heavy New York accent. Great way to start the conference.
We ended up spending a lot of time at the expo where I met some recruiters, most of them for nurses but I did meet one lab recruiter. I hope to work with him in the future. The amount of free stuff I managed to aquire was pretty impressive. One of the companies I have not worked with yet gave me a whole big bag of goodies like a shirt, water bottle, pens, chapstick, and a selfie stick. I felt loved. Hopefully I will get to work with that company for an assignment as well. We met lots of interesting people and their spouses/support staff. Jesse found it very eye opening that many of these people travel alone. I could not imagine doing it without Jesse’s help. He makes it all so much easier. One of the interesting round table discussion that we went to involved RV living. Someday we want to buy a fifth wheel and live in RV parks while I am on assignment. It is a great way to earn a bunch of money to pay off the RV and the truck we will need to haul it!
After a full day of talks we had a wonderful dinner to look forward to. Jesse has always wanted to go to an Iron Chef restaurant and we made reservations for B&B Ristorante in the Venetian hotel. It is one of Mario Batali’s restaurants and it was incredible. We each ordered a tasting menu so you were given six small plates of various wonderful food. It was worth every penny. I cannot remember the last time we sat and enjoyed a nice slow dinner of about two hours where we had wine and just relaxed. I loved it. I also surprised myself by eating some different things like squid ink spaghetti. Jesse, of course, was in his element. I am glad this was something we could enjoy together.
Tuesday had even more talks and we learned about taxes and spent more time at the expo. We were getting a little bored and when the final talk came around we left a bit early when they wanted to sort people into groups based on their personality; we went shopping for the afterparty instead. We also went to the poolside bar and had a cocktail before going to the room to get changed for the party. The conference organizers rented out the Moon Nightclub at the top of the Palms Hotel. They had some pretty swanky limos to drive us to the Palms and back to the Planet Hollywood. The views were very impressive. Las Vegas is pretty at night with all the lights. They had snacks and plenty of drinks. I talked with some more recruiters and had a wonderful time. It was a great party to cap off a conference that ended up being much more informative than I had originally thought.
Jesse and I enjoyed our time in Vegas but we were ready for the next part of our vacation. A visit to NC to see so many wonderful friends that we miss dearly and also a trip to our storage unit. After our party on Tuesday night getting up early for our flight the next morning was not easy but we knew it would be worth it once we made it to North Carolina.
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