29 Hour Vacation

I think I've hit on something. The 1 night/2 day vacation. I really felt like I got away and only had to pay for one night in a hotel! The key is to go someplace relatively close, and I love that Palm Springs is just over 2 hours from our house. We drove out Saturday morning to spend the day with my friend Sara, her hubby and her son Alex who is 4 years old. She and I are friends from NY and I only see her when she does her once a year mother-in-law visit. I'm a little embarrassed I haven't been back to New York in almost 5 years. Oops.

We spent Saturday morning with them at the Living Desert Zoo. It was our first time there and I loved it! Addie was shy around 4-year old Alex and it only took her about 3 hours to warm up to him. Maybe that's not so long since she told me recently that she doesn't like boys because they are too loud. By the end of the day, after the zoo, lunch at a Mexican restaurant and swimming at the pool, Addie thought Alex was hot stuff. He introduced her to Scooby-Doo and she requested to sit next him at the amazing outdoor feast that Sara's mother-in-law cooked for us. We didn't get to our hotel until after 10 pm and the three of us crashed out family style in the King sized bed.

They had to fly back Sunday, so we had all day to explore on our own. I wasn't expecting much from the Travelodge we booked. Prices were outrageous and availability slim so we took what we could get. I was more than pleasantly surprised. We even liked it enough that, instead of spraying ourselves with Lysol and heading out first thing in the morning, we hung out by the pool in the morning, after a glutinous diner breakfast, and took in the view of the San Jacinto mountains behind us. Heck, I'd even go back!



After pool-time, we headed up, 8,000 feet up, the mountain via the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. I had to explain to Addie that it was aerial as in up in the sky, not Ariel as in the Little Mermaid. It was in the mid-80s when we left the valley and was 49 degrees at the top. I love that we cooled off in the pool and then Addie got to hack at snow all in the same day. After putting in two full days, she fell asleep first on my shoulder and then on Cap's during our shortened hike. Check out a few more pics of our weekend here.