Vacay for a Day

[So I wrote this Sunday, but lacked decent internets... Here ya go anyways]

My weekends at home are often one big rush to squeeze in as much as I can into one little day. As if I spent the whole time from Friday afternoon to Sunday night in an airport, I end up hurrying up to wait. Even when I’m not traveling, I’m either cramming in seeing as many friends as I can, doing as much laundry and re-organizing as possible, or rushing from errand to errand, inevitably still forgetting one or two. This is why stayovers can be so much better than going home, unless I find myself in a city where I want to see everything in the 36 or less hours I typically have on the ground.

I’m sick of this pattern, so I’m changing the arrangements. This weekend, I really didn’t want to have two long, pointless flight days. Baltimore to Seattle to Milwaukee would inevitably be broken into at least 3 shorter flights, and flying out for a week at a time is painfully inefficient. So instead, I went almost all the way home, and spent the weekend in Phoenix with another PM. It didn’t really save me anything in flight time except that I had two non-stops and didn’t have any packing to do on Saturday.

We agreed to splurge on a hotel and stayed at the Fairmont Princess in Scottsdale thanks to a friends and family discount from a connection. It cost us under $300 each for the entire weekend, including rental car (yay points!) and food. We spent the entire day yesterday lying by the pool doing absolutely nothing and then met up with some of her family friends for a family dinner and a movie rental. It was so nice to be warm (75-80!!) and to finally see some real sun (yes, I’m a little bit pink and crispy today, even with SPF 55).

Then I got even luckier: a non-stop flight from Phoenix to Milwaukee in First Class!! When the only seat left on the only reasonable flight is in first class the company evidently books it for us. There are definitely some creature comforts that make it worth it, but more on that later. I just really enjoyed having a chance to really have a vacation, even if it was only a day.

My latest goal is really to find friends all over the country so that I can have more mini-vacations like this. Anyone who wants to donate a friend to the cause is more than welcome to suggest folks who wouldn’t mind a couch crasher who LOVES to bring wine and cook dinner for her host :).