It's Official!

I, and my band of merry men, have made it back to our home away from home, Rexburg.
My first opinions of this place, when I arrived a year and a half ago was that I would hate it.  It's a small, mostly Mormon-populated town in the middle of seemingly nowhere, and I could see nothing to do here.
I wanted to get in, get graduated, and get out.
Now, as the date of my graduation gets closer and closer I find myself not wanting to leave.  Because I love it so stinkin' much here.
So traveling here is always sort of strange, because I am going from one place I love (Minnesota) to the other place I love.  But I love them for entirely different reasons.
Minnesota is beautiful.  It is green.  It is wet.  It is populated.  It is home.  It has family.
Rexburg is nonstop fun.  If you are bored here it's because you choose to be.  There is always something to do.  It is clean.  It is chaste.  It is benevolent.
Wait...that sounds like I'm describing something else.
Either way, it's a load of fun, and of course it is overflowing with young, beautiful, polite women.
That certainly doesn't hurt.

This trip didn't come easily.  There were many a hardship to face.
For instance...
-two drivers with four passengers for two vehicles for 17 hours with no sleep.
(Which is, by the way, the fastest we have ever made the trip.  Usually it is upwards of 19 hours)
-Crazy trucks pulling out in front of us near Island Park, flipping us off when we try to pass them, then waiting for us at their turn just to give us one last middle finger before driving off into their merry, little sunset
-Strange gas station owners who stare out the window with binoculars as you drive away
(North Dakota.  Weirder every year)

OK...so this trip still looks like cake compared to trekking across the plains with a handcart, but it was hard for us, ok?  Don't judge.
***
My official review of Crest Whitening Strips (2 hour)...
The most inwardly awkward 2 hours of my life.
You put the things on, and immediately your mouth starts salivating all over and there's not really detailed instructions for do's and don'ts with these things.  They don't tell you if you can bite down, or if you can touch them with your tongue, or if you swallow your own saliva that is being created due to these abominations of nature all upon your grill.
So I sat, packing all of my belongings for the trip back to Idaho, with these things in my mouth for two hours constantly pondering and questioning what I was allowed to do with them.
It was terrible.
And then when I took them off I felt like they didn't even really work that well!  Did I do something wrong?  Maybe I shouldn't have bitten down.  Maybe I shouldn't have licked them.
It was all so hopeless.
Until I arrived in Rexburg and one of my friends who first sees me asks if I have been whitening my teeth because they looked great.
SO...If you really would like whiter teeth, and don't mind internal struggle, these are for you.
That is all.
***
My allergies have carried over from Minnesota to Rexburg.  I thought for sure they would be gone, but they have persisted.
Which makes me wonder if they were ever really allergies in the first place.
Maybe I actually have some strange, life-threatening disease in which all of the moisture in your body slowly seeps out your nose.
Boy would that stink.
***
I am clean-shaven now.
Which I must admit feels kind of nice, but at the same time feels unfamiliar, despite the fact that I have had no facial hair for far more of my life than I have had facial hair.
Don't get me wrong.
I don't like tons of facial hair as much anymore.
I DO like some scruff, though, because it makes you look older and more handsome in 9 out of 10 situations.
But I also don't mind being clean.  It DEFINITELY makes me look younger.  Especially with my luscious, full head of hair.
I just wish I didn't have to shave everyday.
#firstworldproblems
I know.  I know.

~Boy