Good morning or afternoon, let’s have a virtual drink. I nabbed some fine tea bags from my work conference in Las Vegas, let’s try those.

Can you believe it’s the weekend again?

Not that I’m not excited, I’m actually pretty exhausted. This has been a long week for me. I went to Las Vegas to work as a conference staff on Monday and came back Thursday night. Plus travel time, I worked a total of 46 hours as of Thursday night.

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I did not want to work at all on Friday and if I wasn’t going on another trip next week, I wouldn’t bother working overtime on Friday but since I’m going to Yellowstone next week, I must get some things done before I go to save myself the trouble of having so much catching up to do when I return. .

I was lucky though. My duty at the conference was manning the registration desk, working as a concierge of sorts, pointing people to where they need to go or who they’d need to talk to to get their questions answered. It actually allowed me to work and complete my daily tasks during each of the 50-minutes blocks where people attended their classes and workshops. Though I still have a lot of work waiting for me, I feel pretty good about the work load as I head off on this trip.

Beside working, I think I toured more hotels on the strip this time than all the other trips combined. You wouldn’t believe the steps and distances I put on my shoes. The most I walked was Tuesday – almost 25,000 steps and over 10 miles.

That night, I began with watching the fountain outside the Bellagio dance, and then I toured the inside of the hotels from the Bellagio with its conservatory to Caesar Palace to witnessing the fire power of the Mirage volcano as it danced to tribal music. The last time I saw this volcano was in 2012 yet, I have little memory of it.

After that, my aunt and I crossed the street into the Venetian and almost instantaneously, my aunt became drawn toward the gondolas, snapping picture after picture.

My aunt wanted to ride the gondolas but I think it would be incredible awkward with the rower singing Italian opera at the top of his lungs. I don’t know how I would react to that.

You want to know the one thing I wish I didn’t have on this trip? My cold.

Though I was no longer feverish, my voice was hoarse and sometimes gone, my nose was runny and stuffed, and I have this annoying cough that sounded like I’m choking and need a Heimlich maneuver immediately. Of course, I wasn’t too worried since there were almost 1000 emergency dispatchers at the conference. In the end, I think I got through this trip on 2 boxes of day and night cold medications, deep breaths, and a smile that let people know I’m fine and didn’t get a cold days before the conference.

If we were having coffee, I would thank you for joining me in this edition of #weekendcoffeeshare and hope we’ll both return next week.