For Christmas this year we gave out sibling dates as gifts to the brother or sister whose name we drew. My brother Alex drew my name and promised to be my guide in Rexburg to all the sites associated with the Teton Dam failure in 1976. This weekend I met Alex in Rexburg and got a whirlwind tour of life in as a student at BYU-I. I forgot what real college life was like. We went out to dinner with a bunch of his friends Friday night in Idaho Falls and then went to a girl's apartment to watch a movie (I fell asleep on the couch in the first 10 minutes). The girls in the apartment did not go to bed until well after 1 a.m. while I was lying on their couch trying to sleep. At this point one of them remembered that they actually had an empty bed where I could sleep (information I would have appreciated about 3 hours earlier). It was pretty funny and definitely a flashback to my undergrad days.
Alex and I drove out the the dam site and hiked around trying to imagine what the flood would have looked like. He took me through all the towns that were hit. It was great! We had such a fun time! It was a great road trip. The drive across Idaho was beautiful this time of year with the mountains still snow-capped and the fields and grass starting to turn green.
I did start my thesis research at the BYU-I special collections and they were so excited to help me! I am glad that it will be an enjoyable experience. So far I am overly-enthusiastic and obsessed with the topic, so I hope I still enjoy it by the time I present it next March. I present my thesis proposal to my committee of advisors on Wednesday, so wish me luck!
