I talked the other day about how I try to get up to see my Mother as much as my schedule allows. I always do my very best to make time to see her for Mother’s Day. If nothing else, I have to make the trek from the Phoenix area where I live (or rather where I pay rent!) up to the Cottonwood, AZ area especially for this holiday.

My sister and her husband live in the area so they are able to spend a lot of time with Mom as she gets a bit more experienced in life. If I don’t do my share to come up and see her, Sis tends to give me plenty of grief about it. Grrr!

photo credit: termie

I had mentioned the La Bella Café in my last post and how wonderful their cheesecake tends to be. I was up that way for my last birthday, and Mom, Sis, and some of their friends joined me for a birthday dinner there.

Since the cafe doesn’t have a wine and beer license, you have to bring your own if you are hoping for some nice libations with your meal. And that’s a really cool thing, actually because they don’t charge any sort of corking fee, so one’s dining budget really can go a long way.

Any how, I mention that birthday dinner because Mom had commissioned an entire cheesecake from them to serve as my birthday cake. I couldn’t have been happier! It was based upon the classic tastes and ingredients of a Snickers candy bar. Only it was cheesecake. Only it was fabulously fantastic! And even though their were 2 pieces left over, I was only able to bring one home with me. Mom was sure to claim the other one!

So, I’m sitting at the DFW airport awaiting the quick flight back to Phoenix. I won’t actually be going home, but instead plan to drive right up Highway 17 from the Airport up to stay with Mom for the weekend. We’ll have brunch with her and the rest of the family on Sunday.

After that, I need to get back down and check into my room at the Phoenix Airport Hotel and get ready for the customer appreciation convention and seminars our company is putting on until May 11th. These are always great times for us sales folks to spend with customers from all over the country. Sure we see them several times a year, but when they come to PHX, they all get to see each other.

Should be a great week. Happy Mother’s Day!

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Ugh. I’ve really gotten to that point in life where I don’t care to do much of anything on Sundays. Not because religious challenges or anything like that. It’s actually more to do with the fact that where I live (somewhat rurally area). The nearest neighbor is about 2 miles away, and while that seems like a ways to city dwellers, it’s really not.

Especially when your house faces and is near the road. Unfortunately, my place is at the head end of the through way so there tends to be a lot of traffic that passes by, Monday through Saturday.

But Sundays I’ve noticed over the years are much quieter; less traffic coming or going. A little in the early morning and early afternoon. Guessing that is about the journey to churches and houses of worship.

Otherwise, it’s lovely to sit out on the porch, read the newspaper. Yes, I’m one of those hold outs that likes to touch the page. I know I’ve gotten my fill when I have to get up and wash the newsprint off my fingers.

But this Sunday I’ll be heading down to the Phoenix Airport Hotel because my schedule forced me to grab a very early flight to Los Angeles. I do my best to avoid early Monday meetings. While I don’t actually have to see anyone until 11:30pm, I am not one to run through airports to make deadlines.

But I’m also not much of a fan of giving up my lovely, contemplative Sundays either. Of course, this happens very rarely, so I really shouldn’t complain. But you needed to know that I’m sacrificing for the sake of low stress traveling.

With today’s silly scans and strip searches, anything a traveler can do to make the journey easier has to be undertaken. If that means trading some stress reduction on Sunday for smooth sailing on Monday morning early, then I suppose I’m all for it.

You have anything that really gets to you in the way of travel peeves? Do share!

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Interesting. I could have sworn that I’d pressed the “Publish” button yesterday when I was getting ready to check out from my stay at the Phoenix Airport hotel. Clearly I did not do that very well. Maybe I’m losing it? Who knows!

I’ll just add that I’m home now, working out of my home office for the remainder of the month. Always great to be back home, regardless of how much I enjoy traveling around our country. Just can never be gone for too terribly long.

And the actual post that I thought I’d published yesterday:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ugh! Quite late now. Since I’d decided to check into a room for the night and make the 2 hour trip home tomorrow, I thought I’d stay up a while. Just relax. Take the edge off. Order a pizza or something. There’s a bunch of listings in the yellow pages for food delivery, so that’s nice.

In fact, I’m likely going to sleep later than normal in the morning just to fully recuperate from the journey. It started out with me being quite under the weather, but as the days progressed I’ve come to feel better. Doesn’t take away from the general fatigue we all feel from extended travel, however.

Tired or not, I’m definitely relishing the good success of this month’s journey. There are a lot of great things in life. And one that is most appreciated by this fellow is when hard work pays off with measurable success. Plus, I’m pretty sure my boss and her boss like it when I perform well at my job. At least I hope they appreciate the efforts!

Have a great week (and weekend)! Be back at you real soon with more awesome travel observations and quirky little viewpoints!

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One of the nice things about all the travel I get to do is the fact that I’m constantly staying in great places. While our company is on the smaller side (read: not a billion dollar a year corporation!) we still have a nice stipend to better the effects of being away from home so much.

I’m getting ready to board a shuttle that will eventually drop me off for my stay at the Phoenix Airport Hotel. This is what I mean when I say we have it nice as far as travelling for our company goes. If we have an extended flight that must leave extremely early in the morning, we’re authorized to leave the afternoon prior to our flight so we don’t have to drive so early in the morning to get to the airport.

Since my flight takes off at 6:45 am, I’d have to be there by at least 5:00 am (yeah, I know, less than 2 hours. I live dangerously!) My home is about 1 hour 45 minutes from PHX, and I would have to be up and driving a little after 3 am. Heck, why even go to bed at that rate.

The company recognizes that travelers in my situation are not very effective when we do get to our destinations. As such, we get this little perk. Plus they pay us for the travel time we make, so that’s always a great aspect to help justify giving up our time the day before business travel.

Does your company offer you similar travel benefits? Would love to hear about them. Drop a comment and share the good and bad of your business travel experiences.

Thanks!

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