Hoover Dam and Las Vegas Weekend!

I am already at the midpoint of my last week in Arizona, still can't believe how fast it has gone! The other interns and I took our last big trip for the summer, we went to Las Vegas and on the way up we made a stop at the Hoover Dam! I have always wanted to see the Hoover Dam so it was awesome that we were able to stop...it was great to see! It was weird to think about how much water it was holding back and how much concrete went into building it. Las Vegas was a good experience as well, I enjoyed seeing all the sights and walking down the strip at night. We did a package deal of dinner and a show, we decided to see the Lion King and eat at Strip Steak which was all at the Mandalay Bay. This was my favorite part of the weekend the dinner was delicious and was by far the fanciest dinner I have had, and to top it all off the show was very cool! Here are some pictures of the weekend!

I enjoyed this view a lot!

Great to see such a cool structure!

Very tall bridge that was awesome to see too!

New York New York!

Now I actually have to go to New York...

You can see everything in Vegas!

Not the greatest picture, but we stopped to watch the water show as we were crossing an overpass!

Such a great show!

We went to a parrot show on our last day, this was another great thing to see! This lady was or is on America's Got Talent this season...her birds are trained well!

I had another great trip...it is amazing to me how much I have seen and done this summer! I am going to a Diamondbacks game tomorrow as my last big thing of the summer, then I will finish up my last two days at work and then I will be off to Maryville! I'm excited!

Camelback Mountain Round Two!

Okay so like I mentioned in my post earlier in the day, I went back to Camelback Mountain over the weekend! This was my second time going; the first time I was hiking in the middle of the day and it was very hot, not making it all the way to the top...I told myself that I would come back another day and make it! This time I left in the morning...still hot, but not as bad, I made it a to the top! It was great, I really enjoyed going back and hiking. I envisioned myself getting out there a lot more than I did this summer, but it just flew by so quickly. Here are a few pictures from the top of the mountain!

It was great to just sit for awhile and enjoy the view!

I saw this bird on a cactus...so I decided to take a picture...I like it!

ONLY 8 MORE WORKDAYS LEFT!

My experience is definitely coming to a close. I am in my 8^th week here and I only have 8 workdays left! The past couple of weeks at work have been good, I have been doing a lot of follow-ups with vendors who are interested in the events we offer. The deadline to sign up for these events is August 1^st, that is coming up quickly. So a lot of what these weeks have been is finishing up discussions and attaining more event sponsorship. I just learned yesterday that we have surpassed opening revenues last year by 5,000 dollars so far and counting! This figure also doesn’t include all of the in-kind donations that some events we will be receiving.

I have been impressed with some local vendors and how much they want to contribute to ASU Fall Welcome events. At the very beginning of my experience Rebecca and I went to my very first vendor meeting with Sunflower Farmers Market. They are a local grocery store, that has really been great with sponsoring many events. There is a mini-bus called the Orbit that is free public transportation for students that drives to different spots that are close to campus. Sunflower Market is one of these stops. They had the idea to get in contact with the multiple places that the Orbit stops and join forces and sign up for our Welcome Zone. This way they would offset some of the costs and they will still be able to outreach to the Student Population. Sunflower is also participating in two other events, they donated 7,000 reusable bags to Passport to ASU which is there Student Organization and Resource Fair and they will be setting up and sponsoring a watermelon stand at the Tiki Luau which is an RHA sponsored event. They approached us with a lot of these ideas, so it was nice to see their creativity and willingness to show support and get involved.

As my experience is wrapping up I have set aside some time to setup some meetings with different people within University Housing. I have talked to one Associate Director of Residential Life and have another one setup for later this week. I will be talking to the Director of Residential Life on Monday, and then the Business Operations Manager on Tuesday. It is nice to hear some of their experiences and the different opportunities that are out there.

Over the weekend I took the time to go back out to Camelback Mountain to hike again. I went the very first full weekend I was here and I didn’t make it to the top. I said I would go back another time to hike to the top. So I achieved this goal this weekend! I left earlier in the morning so it was too hot, and I made it. I plan to post some pictures soon!

For my very last trip here…the Interns have planned a trip to Las Vegas this weekend. We will see how it goes, it should be fun! It will be nice to see everything!

SANDSTORM?!

Arizona has been full of experienes...but I can definitely say that I wasn't expecting this one. So one of the other interns and I decided that we needed to go to Wal-Mart, it was a normal trip and was sunny and partly cloudy when we left...no big deal. We pull into the parking lot and I see a big cloud off in the distance...and I  commented "I think a storm is moving in"...but it was more than moving in...it was quickly approaching us! As we got out of the car and were walking into Wal-Mart we got blasted in the face with sand/dirt and things were literally blowing over in the parking lot. So we quickly got into the store, but we were followed by a lot of sand/dirt that filled the air in the store. I thought it was pretty cool! I can now say I kind of got stuck in a Wal-Mart in a SANDSTORM! One of the other interns lives on the Polytechnic campus and he was able to take a few pictures of what it looked like approaching his building!

As you can see...this cloud was no joke!

Everything was about to be engulfed in sand!

This is what it looked like all around!

The storm lasted for probably about an hour and driving back to our building it caused electricity to go out so there was no streetlights or stoplights, so it was an interesting drive back to campus. This was an experience I just had to share!

San Diego!

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! I watched the Tempe firework display on the roof of a 15 story residence hall, it was neat and you could see the whole city of Tempe around us. Last weekend Kelly came to visit me and we drove six hours to San Diego. It was was very nice weekend and the weather was great! I am so happy she was able to come see me! We went to the San Diego Zoo, Sunset Cliffs, and one of the many beaches they have there. Here is some video and  pictures from our weekend!

We fed the giraffes while we were at the zoo...that was a lot of fun, but wish they gave us more food!

We got to see two pandas!

Koalas!

This is not a very good picture...but we got to see a real BEARCAT!

Later that night we went to Sunset Cliffs which was nice and the closest I have ever been to an ocean!

Then the next day I got to swim in the ocean! It was awesome!

Again this was a great weekend and kind of marked the middle of my experience! Weird to think about but I only have 13 more workdays left!