"It's the woman in 228, AGAIN"

That's me. The woman in 228. 

Welcome to the latest installment of I'M NOT ONE TO COMPLAIN, BUT . . . the Arizona addition. 

Not sure I mentioned my trip officially here, or just in comments. Last month, I bought flights for Curly and I to fly to Phoenix early July for the National Championships of Irish dancing. 

I used frequent flyer miles and when I saw all our miles piled up, I thought WHY ARE WE LETTING IRISH DANCING DICTATE WHERE AND WHEN WE TRAVEL? DANG IT.

I looked at flights to Florida and reserved a few million different options that would expire in a few days, unless of course we decided to book them. I sent a screen shot of one of the flights to Coach with the caption:  WANNA GET AWAY?

Hell yes! Between the last several months dealing with Lad and a few other stressful situations, we were spent. We ended up selecting Arizona because the Florida flights were all in the middle of the day. Who wants to devote a whole day to travel when all ya got is a few days?

I juggled my babysitting people, so we  could leave on Friday and return at Monday after midnight. OK, technically Tuesday.

This trip promised to be different than our other weekend getaway trips that were tied to classes that Coach taught. Translation:  I wouldn't have hours during the day to do as I pleased before meeting him for dinner after his classes. We'd have lots of 'together' time. The night before we left, I asked him if he was bringing a book. He knows my agenda:  workout, hike, lay by the pool, read, eat out, nap. Not necessarily in that order. Yes, he had a book. And plans to sit in the shade while I soaked up the rays.

We waited 45 minutes in a long ass car rental line. Well, that sucked. The minute we were in the room, I was stripping. Don't worry, this is NOT THAT kind of a post. I dug my bathing suit out of my bag and hit the pool area. Coach was going to workout and meet me at the pool later.

When he arrived at the pool, I asked if he'd seen the sign. He hadn't. 

(click for the link below to the movie line this reminded me of)

Sorry folks, the parks closed. Moose shoulda told ya out front. The pool and the hot tub heaters aren't working. Sorry for the inconvenience. 

Come on. I was calm. Collected. The weather was beautiful. I'd gotten to the pool at 2 pm. It was in the low 70's. I could survive without dipping into the icy waters. I wondered if we'd change hotels though. 

Coach had looked long and hard at hotels online. He studied photos of the workout rooms and the pools. Meanwhile I thought we'd do an Airbnb, so I spent a lot of time searching. He sold me on the hotel. Not wanting to deal with any possible issues at an Airbnb. Seriously.

This was the view from one of our hikes.

Now, he was cringing. Just before we got dressed to go to dinner, I mentioned a hotel change. He was like:  OH, I'M NOT CHANGING TONIGHT, WE CAN CHAGE TOMORROW. The problem:  if we changed in the morning, we'd be without a room for a few hours which we could handle but we had food in our fridge. Have you stayed at a Home2 Suites? They have full size refrigerators. I carried some of my homemade GF stuff on the plane in a small cooler bag. Now we also had milk and yogurt. A switch mid-day seemed inconvenient. 

The front desk balked at a hotel change when we suggested they put us up at one of their other properties with a pool that wasn't broken. Apparently Coach booked thru a third party place. 

He used Expedia on our first trip to AZ for a class in 2016. I remember because it was the weekend Nancy Regan died. It was a huge hassle to change when that hotel turned out to be REALLY disgusting. 

(Since we liked the pool and hated that hotel, we joked this weekend that we should just sneak back into that pool as it wasn't far from where we were. We looked it up for kicks -the guests had written reviews that were horrifying. Needles, drug deals, rude staff, etc. Were there needles back when we stayed there? I'm naive, and was probably more so in 2016 when I'm guessing that if I'd seen needles I'd have probably just thought:  OH, A DIABETIC HAS BEEN HERE AHEAD OF US.) 

Coach was upset, because since that rotten experience he avoids third party bookings. He thought he'd booked through Home2 Suites directly. 

Look at us, we're old. 

I'll spare you details. Suffice it to say, we shopped in person at other hotels after dinner. Called places. Asked if they had a workout room, if we could have a late checkout, etc. Called the 'get a room' customer service, where Coach had booked, to ask about a refund. 

It looks so lovely, but that water gets pretty frosty overnight. 

This was a hassle, but through it all we were FINE, really. We were happy to be away and THRILLED that the forecast was amazing. 

At first we decided to stay put, but Sunday when it was going to be 67 degrees and sunny, Coach woke up and decided he wanted a heated hot tub as an option . . . for me, this is implied, because he doesn't really do the sun. 

We baled on the Home2 Suites. 

There is more to this story, but I'm going to post the rest tomorrow. Such a shock, that this got lengthy. I got sidetracked and could've edited it down more but Tank is involved in a Mr. High School contest at the high school and he asked me to find a funny photo of him that would be used in the promotional materials. Well, can you imagine how easy it is to get sidetracked looking for entertaining photos of Tank? Yes, I went quite far down that rabbit hole. Way late for bed.

I hope you visit on Thursday because the best stuff about Arizona is yet to come. Then I will have to draft a post about Tank and this contest. It's going to be epic. His talent portion, well . . . it's something.