Skip to main content

A girls’ weekend to Phoenix

 Our overnight excursion to Phoenix almost got scuppered when Quinn had one of her stomach migraines about 30 minutes into the drive. She started feeling sick so I pulled off the highway and she and Laurie got out. She retched several times, poor kid. Then they got back in and we drove to a Fry’s (supermarket) that was not too far away so that Laurie could get some things she felt might help. Quinn gets these “stomach migraines” every few months. Quinn and I waited out in the car while Laurie and Mercy trolled the aisles and then queued at the checkout counters (early morning Saturday shopping in this heat brings everyone out at once). I confess I kept the car running for the a/c because it was already over 100 degrees.

I wasn’t sure whether we’d turn back or not. With a less determined soul than Laurie, we might have, and I was already wondering if I’d be able to get any money back on our hotel reservation. However, my daughter is steely when it comes to traveling and by the time she returned to the car, Quinn had fallen asleep anyway. So we continued to Phoenix with my audiobook of “Babel” playing. I offered to turn it off but Laurie had got hooked on the story (we are going to Bookman’s bookstore at some point so she can buy a copy.) 

The rest of the drive went fine and we decided to stop at our hotel before we did any shopping. The resort looks beautiful from the outside but it’s showing a lot of wear. I can’t fault that the a/c in our room is barely keeping the room coolish because, honestly, at 115 degrees what can I expect? I am grateful for any amount of “cool”. And, later, when we went to Fashion Square Mall in Scottsdale, even the mall felt quite warm on the top floors.


We had a very happy time mainly window shopping. The mall is full of very fancy shops like Prada and Gucci and Louis Vuitton. People watching there is fun, especially as this weekend is the opening for the Barbie movie so there were lots of trendy--Scottsdale is very well heeled--pink clothed, beautifully made up young and not-so-young wandering around. 


We went back to the hotel at around 6:30 to go down to the pool. It has a “river float” attraction, where you have a large inner tube and float down a man-made channel. The pool was packed of course, the water was tepid and I tried not to think too closely about the water quality. I reminded myself of the number of summers my family and I would head to Plattsburgh Beach, just over the border in New York State; the packed beach, the murky brown lake water. However I DID make sure I had a shower when we went back up to the room. The shower water was colder than the pool hahahah

We had a very late dinner at Cheesecake Factory. I asked Laurie to drive because I don’t see well at night. Hoping that improves in a couple of weeks. I confess I am still very nervous about the op. But onward, coraggio! 



Comments

  1. OneKidsMomJuly 24, 2023 at 4:42 AM

    What a lovely "girls' trip". Glad you're being cautious pre-op, as am I... or at least I'm trying. I'm still three weeks out and paranoid about every sniffle, cough, etc.

    As you said, onward, "coraggio"!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

January 2024 and blogging

  I haven't posted on my blog for a long time. Partly that was due to not knowing what to write about and partly it was wondering if I wanted to put myself "out there" anymore. And in what way. I subscribe to a few blogs on Substack, which is a subscription-based blog. You can pay to have your own blog, you can pay for someone else's blog, and that means you get to write and post and get comments back from a whole lot of people. You can comment on other people's blogs--if you pay--or else you can just read the blog and not pay. Of course you might miss some of the "pay only" content--much like modern news media has teaser stuff but to read the whole article, you have to pay for a subscription. The Substack blogs cover all kinds of topics and there are a few "professional" writers--meaning they're journalists and writers who have published and been paid larger bucks than the $5 a month they get per subscription on Substack--but I think most ...
12 comments
Read more

It’s just another day

  Yesterday was the final day of my 8-day assignment in a 4th grade class; I’ve written something about that assignment in a previous post, “Revolt of the Guinea Pig,” It’s been a challenging 8 days which, as Dickens might have said, brought out the best in me and probably the worst in me as well. But yesterday morning I had that experience that every teacher dreads—shelter in place, also known as possible shooter situation. I had arrived at the school at 7:20 thinking how wonderful it was that our heat had broken a bit. The skies were overcast, we’d had rain the day before, there was a cool breeze. As I walked to my classroom (photos below of what the buildings look like), I waved to the students already gathered on the other side of the gate, who were waiting to rush in, some to the cafeteria for their breakfast, some to the playground to run and hopefully get some of that energy out before the bell rang at 7:55. I unlocked the outside door to our building, walked down the corrid...
2 comments
Read more

Journeying to Helsinki

Sheila and I got up quite early in our hotel room, were packed and ready to go by 7:30. Had some buffet breakfast (a couple of mini croissants, double Gloucester cheese, fruit and a latte), brushed teeth, out of room by 8:30 am. At train station before 9, picked up my tickets and realized I wasn’t going directly to Heathrow on the train but was going to King’s Cross first and then would have to transfer to the Tube. Ugh. Still the first class carriage York to King’s Cross was very nice. I was served a ham sandwich and a brownie. (If I had realized that would be the last food I’d get until 3:00 pm, I would have eaten the whole sandwich. This is becoming a theme with me, long waits between meals.) As first class also means free WiFi, I began to dismantle my arrangements for Edinburgh although I couldn’t fix the Ryanair part of it yet—what a surprise. I have over a week to do that, if I’m not too tired when I get to the hotel in Helsinki tonight, I will get that done. It was difficult to ...
2 comments
Read more