Last days and first days

I know I stopped with the blog entries last week but once I got to Butte I didn't have internet the first night in my apartment then just had a ton of unpacking and things to do to get settled. My dad and I did however make it to Butte ok. Our last day of drying from Buffalo, Wyoming to Butte, Montana was much shorter than the other three days. We actually made it to our destination before dark. There also wasn't anything quite as exciting as the corn palace as we drove through Wyoming and Montana. We did make a stop for gas near the Custer Battlefield. The gas station was literally in the middle of nowhere and was attached to the Custer Battlefield Museum. That's all that was there for miles and miles and miles and miles and lots more miles. I went into the building to use the potty and that was interesting. They've either had lots of problems in there or the owners are super preventative people. There were signs in the bathroom telling me how to operate everything. There was a sign about the lights, a sign telling me to turn the handle clockwise, a sign that told me to hold the toilet handle down for five seconds, etc. There were also two cats roaming the parking lot that really creeped me out. Actually, one didn't bother me at all but the other was missing a tail and seemed larger than a cat should be and not fat wise but height wise so I was a little scared of that creature. Speaking of creatures, when we were pulling back onto the highway from this pleasant stop a truck was in front of us with two dogs in the bed and one dog in the back. However, this was not a normal pick up truck. The back of the truck was flat and nothing on the sides so nothing to really hold the dog in, it was just jogging from side to side barking and probably desperately trying to not fall off (at least that is what I would be doing)
The rest of the drive through Montana was pretty tame. Passed Billings, the biggest city in Montana, it looked like a bunch of refineries and about three tall buildings. Also passed Bozeman and saw a sign for a water park. Don't worry it's indoors because an outdoor water park in Montana would be insane. This place is cold. There have been below zero temperatures every day that I have been here so far. A 23 year old guy died of hypothermia too. Although today I found out he was extremely intoxicated. So basically life lesson: If it's below 0 don't get super drunk and pass out in your back yard. You may just want to avoid getting super drunk all together so that you don't somehow drunkly end up in the cold. I've also been told that this is just an unusual cold snap and it doesn't normally get this cold. I hope not. My apartment has heat tho so no worries.
Anyways I've had my first few days in my apartment now and my first day of work. The first few days in the apartment were spend unpacking, assembling furniture, and making daily trips to Walmart when I discovered there was something else I needed. Good thing there is a Walmart in this town because there is no Target or basically any other store you've ever heard of. Well K-mart. There is a mall though. Walked through it yesterday and for all my friends from Garnet Valley, it is smaller than the Concord Mall. To those of you who have no idea what the Concord Mall is I'll just tell you that this Mall in Butte is small. They do have one nice department store though called Herbergers.
Last night Dad and I went over to I think my Dad's second cousins house. (I'm really not sure how the whole second cousin, cousin once removed thing works) But we found out right before I moved here that she, her husband, and two little boys live right here in Butte so wooo I have family here. I met them for the first time last night and they were very nice so that's good news for me. I think my mom is also super psyched.
Now today was the first day of work. That went well did some paperwork, learned the basics of the editing system and went out to do some stories. I didn't actually interview anyone today but I did go along and shoot the interviews with Vets for the Pearl Harbor Day story, an interview with a Butte native about a famous "mover and shaker" in Butte that just passed away, and filmed some leaking pipes due to the extremely cold weather. All of these stories I edited as a way of learning to use Final Cut Pro. After I got home Dad and I tried a local Pizza place for dinner. It was pretty good. There's no national chain restaurants in Butte all pretty local stuff. Well unless you consider Denny's and Perkins but they would never be my first choice for dining out. Now it's almost 9:30 here and since I'm a real person now and have to wake up early for work that means I have to go to bed in about two hours or less. Wow. Goodnight.