Small Town Charm, Big City Blues

Catherine and I had grand plans this morning. We got up at 7am and hit the road by 8. We entered into Iowa (again! It seems you have to go through Iowa to get anywhere.) and by the time we got to Missouri, we needed some coffee. After stopping for coffee we found the Missouri Welcome Center and went in. We were greeted by some very excited attendants and were treated to the wonderful history of the state, all of the famous people who are from Missouri and all of the places we needed to go before leaving. In a span of 10 minutes I learned about the Pony Express, JCPenney, Mark Twain and Walt Disney. We were also given an alternate route to St. Louis that would take us there via Mark Twain's birthplace. We walked out of the welcome center with a huge stack of maps and brochures all about Missouri.

Catheine and I were kind of excited about the alternate route and decided it would be fun to see the birthplace of Mark Twain in Hannibal, MO, so we headed down the interstate and hopped on Missouri Hwy 36. We got into town, we were greeted by a huge town festival complete with shops and tons of food! After taking a fantastic picture of the Tom and Huck Monument, we headed downtown and perused the shops. We saw a glass blowing demonstration, lots of great pottery (but none, I have to say, as fabulous as Seagrove, NC) and tons of food. Catherine and I broke down and bought 2 different kinds of fudge (which we have been snacking on all day), Rasberry Chocolate and Dark Chocolate Walnut. Yum Yum! We left around 3, just as it was starting to rain a bit, and headed for St. Louis.

We took Senic Byway 79, which runs along the Mississippi River, and really enjoyed it! We saw a bunch of wonderful little towns along the way and were thrilled with all of their charm. It made me long to live in a town like Louisville, NE or Hannibal, MO, where everyone knows everyone and the world seems to move a little slower.

Just as we moved into St. Louis, the bottom dropped out of the sky. It had been a bit overcast today, but we just figured that we would get ahead of the rain and not have to worry about it...we were wrong. It poured and there was a lot of crazy lightening! We decided that we wanted to wait the storm out, so we hit a TJ Maxx and stayed until the rain slowed.

Catherine and I sometimes have a problem remembering to stop for food until it's too late. For the past couple nights, we have had a lot of trouble finding dinner so we decided to go looking for it early tonight (this was at about 6pm). As some of you probably know, we have a GPS in the car. It speaks to us in an Australian accent and tells us all kinds of information like, the closest restaurants, the closest hotels and all of the landmarks in the city. We've named the GPS Lee. Tonight, Lee let us down. Lee took us to 2 locations where Panera Bread used to be, but isn't currently. However, while looking for one of the Paneras, we stumbled upon the first capital of Missouri, St. George. It's a super cute town, complete with old brick roads and colonial looking houses. It's beautiful and very quaint; however, everything, including all of the places to eat, had closed a couple minutes before we got there.

Determined to see the Arch and find some food, we headed into downtown St. Louis. The Arch is pretty magnificent. They say that the St. Louis Arch is the gateway to the West, well for us, it is the gateway to the East. We are certainly on our way home.

Having no luck finding food downtown and the rain starting up again, we decide that we are going to leave St. Louis and head toward Louisville, KY. We hit the road, find some food and start our journey east. We decided to go about halfway to Louisville and stop in Evansville, Indiana. Catherine and I discovered about an hour and a half into our journey that we had been driving in Illinois and not even realized it! We had hit 5 states in one day! Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana!

Today was a great day for us to relax and enjoy all of the charms that the small towns we visited today had to offer. While lovely, St. Louis wasn't as exciting for us today as Hannibal was.

On to Louisville in the morning!

O!

This is going to be a rather long post today because I have to sqeeze in 2 days. I was just too tired the other night to go through everything!

Friday got off to a fantastic start! Catherine and I drove up to Blackhawk, SD, which is just a little outside of Rapid City, to see the local Family Dollar. I met up with the DM in the area, Phil, and was able meet 2 great Associates, Connie and Danielle. Both Connie and Danielle were from the Blackhawk area and love it! It was also easy to see how much they also love Family Dollar! Both told me about their first experience with Family Dollar (Family Dollar hasn't been in South Daktoa for very long. I think we have around 10 stores in the state and the Blackhawk store is relativly new). Both women walked into the St. Patrick's Street store and fell in love! They were excited to find out that a store would be coming into their town!

Connie told me that one of her favorite things about working at the store is opening the boxes of merchandise after they come off the truck. She says it's like Christmas everyday! Danielle mentioned that she enjoyed talking with her customers and really getting to know them. She said that they have a bunch of regular customers and liked to be able to greet them with their first name and build a relationship with them.

We moved on to the St. Patrick's Street store in Rapid City where I got to meet 3 super Associates, Rick, Ron and Carol. Rick was our first Store Manager in South Dakota and I could tell how dedicated he was. Rick keeps his store in tip-top shape and has a great time doing it. He is a fantastic merchandiser and loves that he gets to be creative. Ron is a bit quiter than Rick, but he smiled when I asked him what he liked best about working at Family Dollar. He just told me that he loves it and I could tell that was true. Phil mentioned that if he would let him, Ron would work all of the time because he has such a great time! Carol likes to organize the store. She loves the family atmosphere at work and keeps everything in order! All 3 love their customers and their customers love them.

One of the things I really enjoyed about Phil was that I could see how much he cared about all of his people. He told me several times how lucky he was to have such dedicated Associates, but I could also see how much respect for Phil all of the Associates had. He really cares for them and is determined to see them all succeed. I am so lucky to have been able to spend a little time with him!

After getting some fantastic directions from Phil to the Badlands, Catherine and I took off. We found the loop road that Phil was talking about and headed into the Badlands. It is almost difficult to describe their beauty. The Badlands seem to be one of those places that is difficult to decide if they are beautiful or ugly. They look like someone piled sand up to make a sand castle, gave up and started drizzling water down them. They are certainly an interesting sight. The longer we were in the Badlands, the more I began to appreciate their beauty. Catherine mentioned that she thought the Badlands got their name because outlaws used to hide in the caves and no one could find them. It's easy to see how that could be the case. If someone wanted to disapear, it would not be a problem to do so. The biggest problem would be trying to find your way out!

We headed out and hit I-90. The wind was INSANE and everytime we would drive past a truck, the wind would try and blow us off the road. It stayed that way for about 4 hours. We were on the road for a long time yesterday on our way to Omaha, Nebraska, most of which was in South Dakota. The further east we went the more green and flat it became, which probably accounts for some of the wind. We entered Central time, just ouside of Pierre, SD. A while later we saw a sign for something called the "Corn Palace" and decided that we had to see what it was. We discovered that it was literally, a palace made of corn.

Once we finally made it out of South Dakota, we were surprised to find out that we would be spending a little time in Iowa. Who knew that you had to go through Iowa to get to Omaha, NE? We certainly didn't expect it, although we were only in it for an hour or so. Once we left Iowa, we were basically in Omaha. Patti, Catherine's friend from the Sisters of Mercy gave us a call and we headed to her house in Louisville (pronounced Lewisville...we kept saying it wrong out of habit!).

Patti has a super cute A-frame house on the Platte River just outside of Omaha. We hung out there for a while and then headed to our hotel.

Today was a wonderfully relaxing day! We did a lot of sightseeing and not much driving, which was nice. We headed over to Patti's house around 10:00 this morning and then, along with Patti's daughter Megan and her friend Robyn, we hit the city of Omaha. Omaha looks nothing like what I think Nebraska should look like. It isn't brown at all, in fact, it's green. Patti told us that, because it's on the Missouri River, Omaha tends to look very different from the rest of Nebraska. The Missouri keeps the city green and humid! We ate lunch on the river and got to see some neat statues! They were all over the city. Including the one below, we saw a stagecoach, Native Americans and settlers. All were huge and lovely.

We walked around for a while and then hit the Market District for some shopping! The Market District is a bunch of old buildings that have been turned into shops and restaurants. It reminded me a lot of my apartment in Charlotte! Lots of exposed brick and large windows. It did have some fantastic shopping though. I was bought a great necklace and we had a great time just walking around.

We headed over to the Mall, which is a lovely park with bridges over the river. We walked the whole thing and discovered that it was a hotspot for wedding party pictures. In a span of about 1 hour, we saw 4 wedding parties taking pictures!

If you're wondering about the "O!" that is my title for this post, that is the slogan for Omaha because it's the exact reaction that people have to Omaha once they visit, and I have to say that I agree. Omaha is a great city! I never expected to have so much fun!

Around 4 we headed back to Patti's house in Louisville. Louisville is a small town just outside of Omaha and today it was celebrating it's 150th birthday! We had a fabulous time walking around the downtown, checking out shops and seeing how much fun it could be to live in a small town! A bunch of the festivities weren't starting until later, so Patti took us to see some of the state parks in the area. One of them was on the Platte River and the other was just a little bit from Louisville. We climbed the tower in one of the parks and were treated to a fantastic view of the countryside! The Omaha area is fantastic! After climbing down, we found a tepee that Patti told us, you could rent and stay in. So cool! We were wishing that we had known sooner so we could have stayed in one!

We headed back into town because the festivities were starting, but first, needed to eat dinner. We had a true Omaha Steak for dinner and yes, it was delicious! Yummy! After dinner, we headed over the the school for the fireworks and were amazed at how great they were! We were so close to them that it seemed like they were exploding in front of us! We watched them light up the night sky for about 30 minutes and then we headed back to our hotel.

Overall, I had a wonderful day! I got to experience a large city and a small one all in one day, and I can definitely understand why people love living in this area. It absolutly exceeded my expections!

Change of plans, tomorrow we head for St. Louis and then on to Louisville!

Buffalo Sightings!

I just realized that I forgot to post my favorite Salt Lake art! Here is the cow jumping over the moon.

After our crazy Wednesday, Catherine and I were ready for something a little more low key. We left Laramie, headed for Cheyenne and went looking for a Starbucks. We spent a couple hours working and drinking tons of coffee. I have to say that it was nice to relax for a little while.

Around lunch time, we took off to visit one of the Family Dollar's in Cheyenne. I had a great conversation with the ASM, Vicky. She talked to me about how she ended up in the Cheyenne Family Dollar. Vicky was one of our Associates that was affected by Hurricane Katrina. After the hurricane, Vicky and her husband moved to Cheyenne so that they could be closer to their family and she began working at the Cheyenne Family Dollar. She was great and I had a great time talking with her!

After my store visit, Catherine and I headed for South Dakota. We got to take some scenic roads and we finally started seeing how beautiful Wyoming can be when you aren't running out of gas! Wyoming is covered in cows and has some beautiful rock formations.

While Wyoming is nice, I have to say that South Dakota is gorgeous! It's almost difficult to describe it. There are pine trees and rolling hills. On our journey to Rapid City, we drove through Wind Cave National Park and we happened on some Buffalo!! I jumped out of the car and took a picture of them. We also got to see some prairie dogs. As we were heading out of the park, I spotted a Buffalo on the side of the road grazing! They are HUGE! We turned around and got a fantastic picture of him.

We also hit Mount Rushmore today. I finally got to see George, Thomas, Teddy and Abe in all their glory! The sun was starting to set and it was getting a little chilly, but we had a great time! We took a trail, that according to the sign, had a "hazardous walking surface." As you'll see in the picture, the surface was made of concrete and about as flat as anything I've ever seen! Along the "Presidential Trail" we got to see some spectacular views of the mountain and got a little exercise in the process (the trail was all steps and we discovered after going down the thousands of steps, we still had to come back up!). I really enjoyed Mount Rushmore and I'm so glad I got to see it!

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day even though it's my last day of visiting stores. I'm hitting a store in Blackhawk and one in Rapid City. After that, Catherine and I are exploring the Badlands and then heading to Omaha, Nebraska to stay with a friend of hers from the Sisters of Mercy.

A Crazy Wednesday

Catherine and I went our separate ways yesterday morning. She dropped me off at a Family Dollar store around 9 a.m. and then headed downtown to Starbucks to do some work. I, on the other hand, had a much more exciting time! I spent the morning touring 3 Family Dollar stores, meeting some great FD Associates and having a great time with District Manager (DM) Pam Holmes!

Something that I've noticed about Salt Lake City is that everyone is extremely nice! It's like displaced Southern hospitality and not something we were expecting at all in the upper Midwest. I expect for people to go out of their way to be kind in the South, but was pleasantly surprised to have encountered it here. Along those lines, I met some fantastic FD Associates yesterday! They were all genuinly excited for me to be there. Not including Pam, who I rode around with for a couple of hours, I got to meet 3 Store Managers (SMs) and 3 Assistant Store Managers (ASMs). I could see from the minute that I walked into their stores how dedicated these ladies are to their stores and how much fun they were having! Each one had a very different store and a different customer base. Two of the stores were in Salt Lake and one was in Tooele, which is just over the mountain from Salt Lake. All 3 stores looked wonderful when I walked in, but they all looked a little different as well. Each SM had her own style of merchandising. SM Darla who is in one of the Salt Lakes stores mentioned to me that she never takes her Christmas display down. She just changes it to fit the season. She currently has a fabulous spring display up with lots of flowers that her customers seem to love! Lanette, the SM at the Tooele store, talked to me for a while about how loyal her customers are. She told me that they recover the store while they shop because they like to keep their Family Dollar looking fantastic! Her ASM loves decorating and has helped boost sales in Home Decor by creating displays against the walls and on top of the shelves. Bonnie, the SM at the other Salt Lake store, has a smaller store and isn't able to do as much in her store as the other 2, but she still runs a tight ship and her store stays looking great!

An interesting thing I learned about our Salt Lake stores is that they do a fantastic softlines business (for those of you who aren't retail nerds like me, softlines basically means apparel). Every one of the SMs mentioned to me that they have trouble keeping their stores stocked with apparel.

I had a great time riding around with Pam! On our way back into the city from Tooele, she took me by the Great Salt Lake and I got to take a picture! The lake is lovely, except for the fact that it smells! I have no idea why, but as soon as you approach the lake you also begin to smell it. According to Pam, yesterday was good day because it didn't smell as bad as it usually does!

All of the ladies I met were wonderful! Pam kept telling me how lucky she was to have such dedicated Associates working for her and I can certainly see what she was talking about. Each Associate I met had such a great attitude and energy about them, and I don't think I saw one of them without a smile on their face!

Pam dropped me off downtown around lunch time to meet back up with Catherine. She insisted that I needed to see some of the city before I left, which we did. We walked up to Temple square to see the Mormon Tabernacle. An interesting, but random fact about Salt Lake City is that it is laid out in a grid system that centers around the Tabernacle. Each street is a number and a direction. For example, one of the Family Dollar stores I visited today was at 3500 South and 7200 West. Below is the center point. When Pam first told me where the store was located, I though she was giving me longitude and latitude! But it actually does make things easier. If you have an address, you can find any place! Anyway, the Tabernacle is truly a glorious building. It has beautiful gardens surrounding it that, Pam told me, bloom even in the snow! There is also a lot of art pieces on display around the city. One of my favorites is a statue of a cow jumping over the moon! I wanted to take it home with me, but I suppose I'll have to settle for the picture!

After leaving the city, we headed for Laramie, WY. Just before crossing into Wyoming we go to see snow! Not just snow on a mountain either. It actually snowed! We went through a little flurry, in May!

Wyoming isn't anything like I thought it would be. It's much more flat and desolate than I though a place could ever be. I know that it has the lowest population in the United States, but I at least figured there would be a couple larger towns to stop for gas and food. There are not. We would see signs that said things like "No services for the next 20 miles." And they are serious! We almost ran out of gas at one point because we couldn't find a gas station. Luckily, Catherine's car appeared to be getting great gas mileage and we did make it safely to a station.

A large part of the landscape of Wyoming is the little strange fences that we saw everywhere. It took us a long time to figure out what they were. They are called snow fences, and they help keep large amounts of snow off the highway, which will close on occasion. In addition to the fences there were "Road Closed" signs and big fences that would close so that you couldn't pass. According to Kate Anderson (the person Catherine interviewed in Laramie), when they close, you have to turn around and go back to the nearest town and wait out the snow! I'm so glad that we don't have to deal with anything like that in NC!

After finally making it to our hotel, Catherine and I settled in our room and were getting ready to go to bed when she jumped on her bed and started shaking. Me, thinking that there was some sort of bug on her bed, started to walk over to see what the problem was and she yells at me to climb on my bed. I ask what the problem is and she tells me that there is a mouse under my bed! Of course, my first reaction is to also jump on the bed. When we finally calm down a little, we run downstairs and the person at the desk changes our room. It was a little hard to sleep at that point, but somehow we managed.

Overall, we had a pretty crazy Wednesday. We saw snow, almost ran out of gas and saw a mouse. Hopefully, today will not be quite as ridiculous! We're in Cheyenne for a little while for an interview and to see a store and then we head for Rapid City, SD. We have heard rumors of a snowstorm and are hoping to outrun it today and tomorrow! Wish us luck!

Welcome to Utah!

Today, we saw extremes. We left the Las Vegas desert to 90 degree weather and pulled into Salt Lake City at 57 degrees. We saw desert, rock formations and snow covered mountains.

Catherine and I did a lot of driving and sightseeing today. We left Las Vegas around 11 pacific and headed up I-15 to Salt Lake City. On our way, we were lucky enough to pass through Arizona. The northern tip was gorgeous! Instead of pulling over on the interstate and taking pictures of the rock formations and mountains, I began taking pictures through the sunroof and window of Catherine's car. Amazingly enough, I think I am better at taking pictures through a window at 70 mph than I am when I'm standing still! The pictures don't do the landscape justice, but I tried!

After a disapointing visit to the Nevada welcome center yesterday (who knew that anything closed in Nevada before 7?), Catherine and I were determined to visit the Utah Welcome Center. We picked up some hotel coupons and some maps to some of the National Parks in the area. The northern tip of Zion National Park was just off of I-15, so we decided to stop. We were rewarded with some of the most beautiful rock formations and landscapes that I've ever seen! It's easy to see why the Mormon's named the area Zion. It really looks like it could be the city of God. The views were breathtaking! Something interesting about the area is that there are mountains very similar to the mountains in North Carolina. We had amazing geologic formations on one side and NC mountains on the other!

Utah has a varied landscape. There are rock formations and plains that back up to very large mountains. The further into Utah we drove, the larger the mountains became. We began seeing snow on the tips mountains and temperature began to drop. Something interesting that I've noticed about Utah is that Utahn's like to put the first letter of their town's name on the closest mountain to their town. We saw P's, E's, H's and all kinds of other letters. I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I have enjoyed Utah. I really didn't know what to expect and I have loved every minute that we've spent driving through the country! I can see why people want to live here.

Catherine and I pulled into Salt Lake City at about 9 pm mountain time and checked into our hotel. I'm so excited about my tour of Family Dollar's tomorrow! I'm driving around with one of our fantastic District Managers tomorrow and then Catherine and I are heading for Wyoming.

The City that Never Sleeps

Yesterday was an adventure! After multiple cities and plane rides, I finally landed in San Diego at 1:15 pm Pacific to an overcast sky. You would think that Sunny California would have sunny skies, but not San Diego in May. San Diegans call them May Grays. Despite the gray day, San Diego is still a beautiful city. While landing, I was treated to hillsides covered in white stucco, spanish tiled houses and colorful sailboats in the harbor. I was starving when I got off the plane, so Catherine took me to San Diego's Little Italy where we ate pizza and admired the city. About an hour after we ate lunch, we hit the road.

I'm still amazed at how different California looks from North Carolina. You notice the difference immediatly and it takes some getting used to. California has rocky, bolder-like mountains covered with short greenish trees. It looks like someone picked up rocks and piled them up to make a mountain. The further west we went, the more sandy everything became. We finally hit the desert about 4 pm pacific and the weather immediatly cleared. The sun came out and it got hotter outside, but not a NC humid heat, a dry heat. The mountains in the desert are beautiful! They look like the wind created them.

We finally hit Nevada at 7 pm and were immediatly greeted with 2 casinos and colored lights. After stopping at the Nevada welcome center, which was closed (who knew anything in Nevada closed before 3 am!), we headed for Las Vegas. You can see Vegas before you get there. I have the feeling that Vegas is one of those places that you can probably see from space. There were lights EVERYWHERE, and not just from the strip. Las Vegas has lights lining every single street, lights from buildings and lights from the casinos lining the strip.

We parked at the Bellagio and walked around the casino a bit. I have to say that I'm not terribly impressed with Las Vegas. After checking into our hotel, Catherine and I hit the strip at 10 pm. For a city that takes pride in their nightlife, there isn't a lot to do if you don't want to gamble. The best part of our time in downtown Vegas were lights and the fountains at the Bellagio.

Today, we are off to Salt Lake City and it's a beautiful day for driving!

The Beginning

I am a list person. I literally can't make it through the day without one. I make packing lists, grocery lists, daily "To Do" lists, weekly "To Do" lists and for years, I've been making a "Things I have to do at some point" list. One of the many items on that list is finally going to be crossed off starting Monday morning. I'm going to be crossing the northern United States in a car with one of my friends, Catherine (yes, we have the same name-I know, it's crazy). I'm flying to San Diego, CA to meet her and as soon as I step off the plane, we hit the open road.

Catherine's reason for taking this trip is part fun and part work (much like mine). She is writing articles for several NC newspapers and interviewing North Carolinians along the way. My big plan is to travel, eat wonderful/crazy food (like a buffalo hamburger) and visit some of my Company's (Family Dollar) great stores in the areas where I'm traveling. I too am going to be writing articles about the places that Catherine and I visit, but mine will be much more focused on the stores and the wonderful Associates who work in them. I have to say that I haven't been this excited about a trip in a long time!

Along the way, Catherine and I are planning to stop in Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, WY, Rapid City (and Badlands National Park), SD, Omaha, NE, Chicago and Louisville, KY. This is a very interesting way to travel for me. After my whole paragraph about my love of lists, you will be surprised to hear that knowing where I'm visiting is about as planned as this trip is. We aren't even totally sure about where we'll be and on what days, but I am determined to go with the flow!

It's going to be a great time, so stay tuned for updates!