Vacation - Day 1

I’m in Phoenix, AZ, at the hotel for Filemaker Developer’s Conference. My boyfriend is attending the conference, and I’m tagging along for a relatively cheap vacation with him (work is paying for the conference, so we had to pay for my plane tickets and my meals). The hotel is gorgeous!

We left Philadelphia yesterday morning. We took the bus and the train to the airport, got our bag checked in relatively quickly, and chilled in the airport until our flight to Columbus. We took Southwest Airlines for our trip, since they’re still relatively cheap and they don’t charge for checking bags. Plus I’ve flown Southwest several times before, the people at Southwest are so nice and amusingly funny. The flight to Columbus was fairly uneventful, other than the overweight woman who sat next to me and kept falling asleep and invading my space. Kevin and I spent most of the flight playing Aurora Feint on our iPhones, my new favorite game and app on the iPhone.

We made awesome time to Columbus, actually arriving there early. We had a few hour layover, so we found lunch in the food court (I got a grilled vegetable hoagie and kiwi lemonade, it was tasty, Kevin had Wendy’s), went back through security since food had been outside our terminal, and played with free WiFi and charged our iPhones. (FYI, we both still have 2G iPhones, we’re not getting 3G ones due to the AT&T plans, and we both really just wanted the 2.0 software, which we upgraded to and LOVE.) Flight from Columbus to Phoenix left on time, no problems most of the flight; in fact we got exit row seats with plenty of leg room. I played more Aurora Feint until my iPhone died; Kevin alternated playing Aurora Feint and listening to audiobooks.

We were almost to Phoenix when the pilot came on the intercom, and told us that there were thunderstorms over the airport in Phoenix, so all planes were in a holding pattern. Apparently we didn’t have enough fuel to be in the holding pattern very long, so we made a pit stop in Albuquerque for fuel. They let us off the plane because we were stuck there for a few hours until the weather cleared up in Phoenix. Kevin ended up going into the airport to search for food since it was way past dinner time for us. It was slim pickings; I ended up with a bagel and a bottle of Sierra Mist and Kevin had a generic rice krispies treat and a Mountain Dew. We finally got to Phoenix about 2.5 hours late, found our bag, and hopped in a cab to head to the hotel.

Then we got stuck in traffic for over an hour. It was the most expensive taxi ride I’ve ever been on, approximately $75, and we were both so exhausted by the time we got checked in last night. It was only 9-9:30PM here in Phoenix, but that’s midnight in Philly, so we went to bed.

Kevin’s at the conference sessions, and I’m chilling in the room for the day. I should venture out to find lunch soon, and probably get lost in vast expanse of the hotel. There’s 10 restaurants, 6 pools, a spa, and all sorts of stuff here. So far the having nothing to do and sleeping in the comfy giant king-sized bed is good enough for me