IQ's Stay, Vegas on the Fly, and the Provo on my Mind

This last week has been a trying one. In all of the years that I have known IQ, this was the first time that I have spent a week straight with him. IQ is a walking jinx. Him and his girlfriend--now fiancé (proposed in Vegas) were trouble as soon as they arrived. Because of a work-related obligation, I was unable to meet IQ at the airport and so the plan was for him to check out a rental car and I would meet him at the house. During the meeting with a client, I looked down at my cell phone and noticed several missed calls. My client graciously waited while I checked in with IQ, who answered the phone sobbing. This wouldn't be the first time that IQ sobbed during his stay--I counted four different occasions. Apparently, IQ is on a do-not-rent car rental list and his fiancé, is a pizza delivery gal with no bank account and no car insurance. In hindsight, I wish I would have handled the car rental before IQ volunteered all of this information, as under normal circumstances amongst normal people, this would have been very awkward. Fortunately, neither IQ nor his Fiancé are normal and they seemed very comfortable.

So IQ and his new fiancé were quite the handful and my wife has ruled out a possibility that both of them can stay at the same time. Mind you, the airport/ car rental fiasco and a series of other unfortunate events all happened before the four of us, plus my wife's friend, drove down to Vegas. A bit of a side note, but I have always wondered who in their right mind purchases those bags of popcorn that they sell in gas stations. Apparently IQ does. He purchased a bag of popcorn and when asked if he wanted some on the trip down to Vegas, he nonchalantly replied, "It tastes soooooo much better if you let it age for several days." I thought to myself, hadn't it already aged several days.

Notable road trip quotes:

Fiancé-- "I love truck stops"

IQ-- "That's the coolest gas station ever. You can pet a zebra."

IQ-- "Is this where Cortez's gold is hidden?" (x 10).

Once in Vegas, IQ and his fiancé were anxious to get their gamble on. In fact, IQ partly cheated and played some slots at a gas station while I fueled the car. By this time, the vulgar looks my wife was giving me because of IQ, forced me to don sunglasses. As far as gambling goes for myself, I typically play poker or will do some sports action. When it's just the wife and I in Vegas, I typically forego poker because it's somewhat of a selfish game time-wise. With the wife's friend in Vegas too, I was able to get some poker downtime and made the most of it. IQ faired as you'd imagine.

While it was nice to have IQ visit, we were somewhat relived to drop him off at the airport last night. With his parting, I have a lot of work to catch-up on and the Provo-river is on my mind. I still seeking some revenge on a particular run that I have had some bad luck on. It rained hard Monday and I expect that the river will be running faster and that the fishing may suffer some, but that's the breaks sometimes. I am interested in swinging some streamers, which I admit is an area of fly-fishing that I am looking to improve on.