For those that don't know what this its, you can check out www.waynegretzky.com/fantasycamp and look at the details. For a short version, a group of people come and get a chance to play some hockey games with Wayne Gretzky and some previous NHL players. Its a once and a lifetime opportunity and I'm lucky enough to go for a second year. My dad is friends with a lot of the players, which is how he heard about this camp in the first place. The camp was February 8th-13th in Las Vegas, NV and everyone stays at the Bellagio. Not too shabby.
Of coures the day I was supposed to leave we have a snow storm in Colorado. The good part was I got the day off from work since we got a snow day. I should of headed right to the airport with my experience, but everything was on time so I thought it will be good. No idea why I thought that with my travel experience. So sure enough I get to the airport, everything is still on time, then BAM, everything is delayed. I jumped on an earlier flight from COS to DEN and thought everything would be well. Well we sat the tarmac forever before we got the plane deiced, finally we took off and landed in Denver at 3pm. I thought this is was fine, my connecting gate to Vegas was about 4 gates down and didn't leave until 4pm. This gives me 50 minutes. SIMPLE! My dad was meeting me in Denver so he could see my plane outside the window. Well right when I thought everything is going to be alright there was no gate for us to go too and wasn't going to be for awhile. So when the clock hit 3:35, I started to have a meltdown, knowing the chances of making my fight were getting less and less. Sure enough once we pulled in to the gate my dad texted me to let me know they shut the door. OUCH, I was not a happy camper and preceded with my usual calls to United. I did manage a 300 dollar voucher out of them, but I was still pissed. Though I went to the Red Carpet Club and cooled off, ate some trail mix, and started to drink because alcohol cures all.
I arrived in Vegas around 10:30pm and went to check in. Well they somehow had messed that up too, but the good news is they upgraded me to a suite! I went and grabbed a crepe from the place at the Bellagio (which was pretty horrible) and called it a night, which I am glad I did since sleep was hard to find after Tuesday night!
Wednesday started with a practice skate. I was super rusty, but skated around a little bit. Didn't get to skate with the pros yet, but still hung out and had some lunch. When I got back to the hotel I gambled, but then headed out with some people from the camp. Before I knew it, it was 4am and I was hanging out in the hospitality suite. Great night, but sleep didn't really happen and before I knew it it was time to wake up and do it all over again. Thursday we had two games and I was super tired. I was on a team with Russ Courtnall, Marty McSorley, Jim McLean, and Grant Fuhr. Though even with the pros we still lost both our games! haha. The second game we had Gretzky play with us and it was a blast. I have so much fun just talking and hanging out with him. We played a couple times on a line and he kept trying to get me a goal, but I struggled! I just am not very good at hockey anymore.
The rest of the weekend we played hockey and once again on Thursday night I stayed way to late. We had a private concert by Kelley James. If you don't know his music, you should check it out because he is pretty amazing. I wish I would have recorded when he start just ad-libbing and flowing on the wayne gretzky fantasy camp. It was outrageous what he could think of on the fly. Afterwords the group had a table at "The Bank" in the Bellagio. Soooo much fun as we danced and drank and danced the night away. Afterwards we headed to the high rollers bar and well I'm going to stop there...7am came around and I was just heading upstairs..whoops. Next day was brutal!!!
This trip always ceases to amaze me on how much fun I have and all the great people I get to interact with. I am super lucky to be able to go to this event and always leave depressed knowing that the weekend had to end. Probably the worse part of all of my weekends is the fact that they do end all all good things seem to come to an end. I had a great time and met new friends, and networked. Though being around so many successful people gives me the itch to reach for more. I left Vegas on Sunday afternoon tired, but would have done it all over again. I try to keep in touch with a few of the people I met, but its always hard to to keep in touch. When I got back on Monday of course I got super sick. I attributed it to 8 hours of total sleep from Thurs-Sun (Yup I calculated it) and drinking a lot.
After these trip I get what I like to call "Back to Reality Depression" It doesn't happen after every trip, only the ones that I have so much fun doing something that obviously can't go on forever and when I meet super cool people that I want to spend more time with and can't. I find this extremely draining and always after I come home I contemplate what I'm doing with my life. I know it sounds corny and its usually short-lived, but life is so short and I want to make the most of it. Part of me says I should be trying to advance my career and make more money, but then again part of me wants to just quit my job and travel, ski, climb mountains, etc and hope that I can figure out a job while doing all of these things and start my own business eventually in the outdoor industry. I feel sometimes that the reason I travel so much is to perhaps find what will keep me motivated to succeed in my career or find something that I could see myself doing for a long time. Or is it because I want to stay away from reality as much as possible to delay having to actually figure out my career and life aspirations. I guess its different for each person, but I am enjoying life and want to make the most of it!
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