You’re Really Going To Appreciate My Work on This Post When I Get to the Part About My Arm…

The first exciting thing that happened on this trip was that we didn’t get charged the $100 for the husband’s bike case. Yay! It’s always a great day when you start out saving $100 on vacation. We arrived safely in Tucson after a stopover in Denver. The flights, baggage, and everything else having to do with the airports didn’t cause us any trouble at all, which was nice. The last time I had an airport experience was in June—the Boy Scout trip to the Bahamas—when we had not one, not two, but several assorted layovers for 5 hours each. (And there were 5 adults with 17 boys…ugh) So this was a breeze!

The kids will be very excited to hear that we got to watch an episode of “The Office” on the way (that’s one of our family’s favorite shows).

When we headed over to the car rental building to pick up the convertible I was soooooo excited about, I was told that they were out of convertibles. Arggghhhh! We chose the convertible over an SUV because we could throw the bicycle travel case in the backseat with no problem, and the husband was thinking of me me me! How fun would it have been to drive around in 80 degree weather with the top down…but alas it was not to be. They made up for it, though. They didn’t charge us the $10/day for the extra driver, they gave us a 5% Costco discount (even though we don’t belong to Costco), and, best of all, instead of giving us an SUV, she upgraded us to an Infinity M35 luxury vehicle.

OOH, this car is “T- to the A- to the S-T-E-Y”. Did I mention that not only did the bike case fit in the backseat, but we got the Infinity for the same price as the convertible? Another $300 saved…yippee! The car is a dream, and the dashboard is like a flight panel, see?

Our hotel/resort is gorgeous. It’s my tradition to take photos of the hotel room before we crap it up, so here it is:

Here’s the view from our balcony:

We stopped on the way out to dinner at the Concierge Desk to get some information for today’s drive to Tombstone and Bisbee. During our conversation, the Concierge asked where we’re from and when we told her “Chicago” she asked which suburb specifically. When we told her, she asked, “Are you familiar with B Lane?” I grabbed the husband’s arm. “Oh my God! We live just off that street!” Turns out that she is one of the original settlers of our neighborhood from 45 years ago. Isn’t that the craziest thing??? She left the area even before the elementary school was built. I am going to ask her today if she remembers the exact address so I can send her a photo of her old house.

We went to dinner at a nice little Mexican restaurant called “El Minuto”. The food was really, really good. The service, not so much. But we enjoyed anyway!

The husband got registered for Saturday’s Tour de Tucson and we came back to the hotel and I relaxed—imagine that!—while he put his bike back together from being in the travel case.

We were exhausted, yet slept terrible. Normally this is the case on our first night anywhere, but my bad night was compounded by the problem I’m having with my arms. You see, I decided that Tuesday would be the day that, before my spin class, I would go back to working on my arm muscles. I totally (but not on purpose, it’s just been too long!) overdid it and since I never get sore immediately, my arms held off until we got to the airport. My muscles are so tight that keeping my arms bent is the preferred position, and it is ever so painful to extend them. To give you an idea of what my arms feel like they look, take a look at this T-Rex.

OUCH. Every time I moved my arms overnight, I woke up. So, on that note, I think this post was plenty long enough for today! Have a good day, everybody!