The armpit of Utah

This past week I (Brookelyn) had the opportunity to go to the USOE (Utah State Office of Education) Arts Conference that was held in Ogden, Utah. Anyone who isn't familiar with Utah and the cities of random names and where they are located, let me just say Ogden is WAY up north. About an hour north of Salt Lake even. And from someone who lives in the very southern tip of Utah it was quite the long trek. I set out on Wednesday morning with three other teachers from my school and the principal. We took a district Yukon and had three other teachers from a neighboring elementary school join us. Besides the amount of hours we were stuck in the car and the fact that my principal REALLY believes in eye contact during conversations (did I mention he was the driver ?!) the trip up was uneventful. By the time we pulled into the hotel it was dark. We were ready to get out of the car, get some dinner, and relax. However our priorities shifted quite a bit once we saw where we were staying. Let me give you just a BRIEF synopsis of what we found inside our "HISTORIC" hotel room . . .

The hole in this blanket was just one of many we found on each bed.

There were holes ALL OVER the place and I don't think they were from old pictures that were hanging up. I think when I counted I had over 20 holes in random places and they were all different sizes!

I thought it couldn't get worse when I got in the shower and found this as my shower head. You can't tell very well but it is basically falling out of the wall with wires all over the place. In addition, the "shower" was pretty much plywood with a coat of paint over it and of course the water had damaged it.


And then we come to the kicker, the big Kahuna, the MOTHER of all problems . . .

Yes that's right my friends, that is blood on the lamp shade! Gross, dried, splattered BLOOD only feet from where my head was supposed to lay that night!

Needless to say I was disgusted. I told the people we were with that I could probably handle a few of these things but blood? Come on! That is just too much. What made it even worse is that the teacher I was rooming with was quick in inform me that her husband works for an insurance company and his job is to go around to hotel rooms and take pictures when there are murder/suicides. And that these things are commonly found there. GEES - THANKS for that visual!!! I took pictures and went to show my principal. His reaction . . ."Oh well, it's only for two nights!" SUCH A MAN!!!!! I think not buddy, we are out of here!

EEWW!!! I am sure there are a lot of nice people in Ogden and that's great but I can promise that the only other time I might even go there is when passing through on I-15. My friend text me one of the days I was there and asked where exactly the conference was held, which city. All I did was mention the name and her reply was, "Oh my gosh! That's the ARMPIT of Utah!" Perfect I thought, very accurate. Luckily the conference was in the nice, clean, sanitary conference center so there were no worries there and I got REALLY close to all the artsy fartsy teachers of Utah. I was surprised, however, that I already incorporate a lot of the things they mentioned into my teaching. Who knew I had creativity in me? Or that I was dramatic? That is certainly news to me!!!! I'm excited to go home and tell everyone in St. George all about the exciting adventure that was mine. My favorite things about this trip:

AND
We don't have either one "down south" so we knew we'd have to take advantage of our time there. We went to Jamba twice while there and each bought a bakers dozen of bagels to take home and freeze. Fortunately for me there was enough asiago cheese bagels, unfortunately my family (who I visited with the rest of the weekend) loves them as much as me so I'm leaving with a mere 2! Oh well, that's ok. I'll be home again in a few days for Thanksgiving. So the moral of this blog . . . NEVER stay at a hotel that is claiming to be "historic" or "victorian." That is just a fancy way of saying "old" and "ghetto."