Happy New Year!

2012 passed in a blur of work, travel, conferences, pregnancy, and babies. Was it a crazy year? Yes indeed! And I wasn’t able to travel for several months. So I was about 50-50 with my 2012 travel resolutions:

Get to Chicago and South Texas. Visiting family is always a priority! I was able to visit Chicago three times last year! That’s a lot of sister time. The Home Warrior and I traveled to South Texas to visit my grandmother twice, and took the Mini Warrior once. As a bonus, we also went to North Texas to visit the Home Warrior’s family twice. I’m sure the Tours of Texas will continue this year!

Take at least one fun vacation. With all the conferences and work trips this year, it’s a wonder the Home Warrior and I had a chance to see each other, much less go on a fun trip. But we managed it! Some good friends of ours got married in Playa del Carmen this year, and we managed to get there for the festivities (and a little fun time before). At seven months pregnant there were definitely challenges, but it was a great trip nonetheless.

Make Executive Platinum. Well, not being able to fly for five months made this one nearly impossible. Maybe next year!

Get the Companion Pass. While I wasn’t able to make this happen in 2012, I am pretty certain that it will happen early in 2012. I don’t want to jinx myself though, so I’m going to hold off on talking about it too much for now.

Looking forward: Travel resolutions for 2013.

1. Visit family. Same as previous years, I want to go see our family all over Texas and in Chicago, plus we have family in New York now.
2. Companion Pass. Get it and USE it. This is the year!!!
3. Get Gold status with Hilton. I’ve been Silver for years without being able to cross that threshold. I am currently doing the Gold Challenge, so should have it soon!
4. Master travel with baby. Or at least learn to travel with baby without losing my mind.
5. Visit Wine Country. For a blissful year and a half, I was able to get to Napa every couple of months. The last time was three and a half years ago and I want to go back!!!
6. Visit one new place in the US. Hopefully the Companion Pass will help us out here! If not, well, we’ll make it happen another way.

My two main resolutions aside from the travel ones are to start getting ready to leave ten minutes before I think I need to (trying to deal with being chronically late to stuff) and do another triathlon.

(Pictured: Photo booth props from Etsy shop The Manic Moose.)

Readers, what are your resolutions this year? How did you do on last year’s?

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Tomorrow, I leave for my 11 day conference. I have done as much prep work as I can for work, and for Road Warriorette. The good news: posts will be appearing regularly! The less good news: I will have limited access to the internet, so I may be slow on responding to comments or emails. The Home Warrior will do his best to get comments approved in a timely manner when I’m unavailable (thanks, honey!). I appreciate your patience!!

For an interesting read today, check out why The Middle Seat from the Wall Street Journal thinks American Airlines and US Airways need each other. 

Aaaaannnnnnndddd….. there might be an exciting post coming next week. One that you all want to watch for……. One that involves a winner of something very, very cool……..

I am getting ready for the ACL Music Festival in a couple of weeks, and I can’t wait.   Although there are a lot of great bands coming this year, I am looking forward to Stevie Wonder the most. I am also super excited about Ray LaMontagne (he’s so great!), Fleet Foxes, the Cold War Kids, Fitz and the Tantrums, Elbow, TV on the Radio, and, of course, Arcade Fire. In preparation, I’ve been listening to a lot of music. My current playlist is as follows:

1. All Stevie Wonder–he’s had so many hits, I can’t pick just a few favorites.
2. Ray LaMontagne–Gossip in the Grain (mostly Meg White, Sarah, and You Are the Best Thing)
3. Fleet Foxes–Fleet Foxes and Helplessness Blues (I can’t help it, they’re just all so pretty. I think my favorite is Ragged Wood, although I also really like Helplessness Blues)
4. Cold War Kids–I could listen to Hang Me Out to Dry every day, and the video is awesome
5. Fitz and the Tantrums–Don’t Gotta Work It Out–a freaking great song
6. Elbow–my cousin just turned me onto this British band. So far Starlings is my favorite.
7. TV on the Radio–I like everything I’ve ever heard by them, but On a Train is what I listen to the most right now
8. Arcade Fire–I love, love The Suburbs. It’s just so beautiful.

If you want to listen to any of the bands I mentioned, or any other bands appearing at ACL this year, just go to the ACL schedule. There are songs by all the bands playing.

So, Readers, what are you listening to right now? Anyone been to any music festivals this year?

This week, I have been in Santa Clara for internal meetings. (BTW, three solid days of meetings is a looooong time.) For this trip, Budget gave me a Chevy Cruz. It drives very nicely, and I have been enjoying it. The first night, I made sure to pay attention to the color and where I parked (gray, left side of the parking lot by the street). But yesterday morning when I left the hotel for the office, I actually tried to get in the wrong car. I walked up to the car, noted the make, model, and color, saw where it was parked, determined it had to be mine, and tried to open the door. It didn’t open, so I pulled the handle again, a little more vigorously. Nope. I stood back, pointed my key fob at the door, and pushed “unlock” repeatedly. Still didn’t open. Finally, I stepped close enough to see the mints on the other seat. Oops…..definitely not my car. Once I find my actual car (which is parked two spaces away, on the other side of a big car), I realize it is dark gray and the other one was light gray. Sigh.

And of course, this made me super paranoid last night when trying to find it in the restaurant parking lot. To make sure I found the right car this time, I clicked the unlock button so the rear lights would flash. Unfortunately, on this particular car, this makes all of the lights, including the headlights, turn on. Not just blink or flash, but turn on. So when I walked up to the car that I was sure was mine, all the lights turned on and I just knew I was about to open the door to someone else’s car. Luckily, it was mine and it all worked out fine.

Readers, how do you keep track of what your rental car looks like? Do I need to start taking pictures of my cars, in addition to my parking spot and hotel room number?

Yesterday I told you about all of the awesome things about my vacation last week. Puerto Rico is great, and everyone should go. Oh and eat some plantains, especially the yellow ones. They are super tasty. Anyway. My trip was great. Here is the less great part.

We got a phone call on Thursday morning at 2AM. It was a recording from American Airlines, saying that our flight home had been canceled and they rerouted us. Okay, what? First of all, 2AM is not my best time so it took a minute for the message to sink in. My half asleep thought process: what the heck, our flight’s been canceled? Why?? Are we stuck in Puerto Rico? Hey, that wouldn’t be so terrible…. And on that thought I fell back asleep.

Friday morning, I called into Aadvantage Customer Care to find out what’s going on. The deal was, our original flight from San Juan to DFW had been canceled because the “plane was being taken out of service.” Of course, my cynical mind wonders if that is code for “the flight wasn’t full so we canceled it.” But whatever. So they had rerouted us to….are you ready for it? JFK. So instead of our five hour flight to DFW and then our one hour flight home, with a total travel time of around seven hours, we were flying four hours to New York, waiting for four hours, then having another four hour flight home. For a total flying time of thirteen hours.

I know that this is way better than it could have been; we could have been stuck in San Juan longer, or had an overnight layover somewhere, or something. But seriously! Not the best way to end a vacation. The routing just confused me! New York is pretty much as far out of the way as you can get from Texas. Miami would have made more sense, or putting  us on the later flight to Dallas. We thought we would be home by 2pm, and instead got home at 8pm. Lame.

But what can you do? I just kept focusing on those extra miles I was getting, and ignored how tired I was. Because even for me, that was a long flying day. And my poor husband is not used to such intense travel days, and he ended up getting sick. So even though we had a great vacation, we had a less great final day. Oh well.

Puerto Rico is wonderful, and we had an amazing vacation. Here are the highlights.

La Concha. We stayed in San Juan, in the Condado neighborhood, at La Concha. It’s a Renaissance hotel, which is a Marriott brand. There were so many good things about this place. First of all, it is very cool looking, sort of art deco meets modern minimalist meets beach resort.  We were upgraded to a junior suite in the original tower, which was very spacious. The bed was comfy, there was a big TV, and a couple of small couches. We had a fantastic ocean view, and I really enjoyed that. However, the “kitchenette” was actually just a mini-fridge and coffee maker. And the “balcony” was approximately one foot deep, so there was only room for standing. But we opened the balcony door and sat in the chaise lounge right next to it, and that was very pleasant. Although, honestly, I would have liked a real balcony. Oh well.

The beach outside was fantastic. Gorgeous water, sandy, no rocks to step on. The hotel provided umbrellas and chairs free of charge to guests, which was also very nice. The waves are very strong on this part of the beach, with an equally strong undertow. I actually got knocked down by a wave, and then lost my sunglasses to the ocean. I was also constantly worried about losing my top. So the next day, I put on a more secure bathing suit, left my sunglasses on the beach chair, and had a great time playing the waves with Home Warrior. It wasn’t necessarily relaxing, but it was tons of fun.

We ate at two of the restaurants, and the food at both was very good. The service in general at the hotel was also very good. I would definitely recommend this hotel.

Oh and the pina coladas were super at La Concha. Not too sweet, with lots of rum. Another bonus–their toiletries are from Aveda.

Old San Juan. One of the reasons we wanted to come to Puerto Rico was for the history. It was first colonized by the Spanish in the early 1500s, so the history stretches way back. We stayed at the El Morro fort for like two hours–it was so cool. One of the towers is original from the 1500s, and it’s pretty impressive to stand somewhere with that kind of longevity. The streets of Old San Juan are paved with blue-toned cobblestones, are super narrow, and have gorgeous buildings. I could have stayed there, just wandering around looking at things, for days.

Flavors of San Juan. These guys offer a  walking food tour, and it was amazing. We went to four restaurants, had a variety of traditional dishes, and I loved every single one. Some of the places we went were normal sized, and some were so tiny I would never have found them on my own. Our tour guide was incredibly knowledgeable and shared a lot of history that we would not have gotten otherwise. If you go to San Juan, I highly highly recommend taking this tour.

The Bio Bay. Oh man, the bio bay. It was just as cool as I hoped it would be, and more amazing to experience than I could have imagined. We did the kayak tour. Now, Home Warrior and I had never actually kayaked before, so this was definitely a learning experience in working together. (BTW kayaking is way harder than I thought it would be.) Let’s just say that we ran into a lot of trees. Anyway. The bio bay is SO COOL. There are tiny little bio luminescent creatures, and when you put your hand or paddle into the water they glow. I wish we could have gotten out and gone swimming with them. Honestly, I want to go back to PR just to experience the Bio Bay again. Highly recommend!

We were sad to come home, but had a great time while we were there. We will definitely be returning, since there are way too many things to cover in one trip. Plus it’s only a five hour flight from Dallas. If you are looking for a place to go for vacation, Puerto Rico has a great combination of beautiful beaches, fascinating natural wonders, cultural history, and fantastic food. A great place to go!

The Home Warrior and I are taking our first vacation of the year together on Sunday, and are headed to Puerto Rico for a week. To say I am excited is a bit of an understatement. I can’t WAIT. We are staying in San Juan in Condado, and have a number of activities planned. We are going to hike in El Yunque, kayak in the Bio Bay (if you don’t know what the Bio Bay is, click this link, the pictures are even more amazing than I had dreamed), explore the forts and architecture of Old San Juan, eat excellent food, and lay on the beach. Oh, and play in the casinos a tiny bit. Does that sound like heaven or what??

I will still have posts go up like normal, but getting comments through moderation may take a little extra time. Thanks in advance to my fabulous step-sister for her assistance, and to you all for your patience.

Does anyone who has been to PR have any must-do, must-see, or must-eat items to add to our list?

I love Tex-Mex. Having lived in Texas my whole life, I was practically raised on it, and in fact had some sort of Tex-Mex three times this weekend. We make tacos, enchiladas, and fajitas on a regular basis for dinner, and consider it the ultimate comfort/hangover food. It is so tasty!

There are all kinds of very common ingredients–tomatoes, onions, cilantro, jalapenos, charro beans, cheese, tortillas, and more that I haven’t mentioned. But one thing I haven’t seen ever in Tex-Mex? Cranberries. When I hear about cranberries, I think Thanksgiving, Fall, family dinner….. not the Rio Grande, enchiladas, or anything else related to Texas or Mexico. And yet, when I was in Florida a few weeks ago, the menu at one of the restaurants included Tex-Mex Quesadillas, with mushrooms, onions, and…… cranberries. Wait, what? Cranberries, really?  I almost ordered it, but decided I would rather have fish, seeing as I was at the beach.

Readers, have you ever seen a restaurant or other place completely botch a cultural reference?

Have you ever had one of those mornings where everything is just a little off? Not bad, really, just little things that don’t go the way you wish they would, that snowball until you wondered how you made it to work at all? Today, trying to get to Nashville just for the day, was one of those mornings for me.

Having to wake up at 4am is never fun, but I went to bed before midnight last night so that at least I would get a little sleep. Of course, I woke up every hour for various reasons. My dog moved, my phone made a noise, my husband had to get up, etc. So when 4am came around I was groggy, but I got up.

Last night, when I was getting everything ready for this morning, I made sure the pants I wanted to wear were ready to go. This morning when I put them on, they were so wrinkled from the knee down that it looked like someone had wrung them out before they dried. Okay, on to outfit plan B. Luckily I had one ready, otherwise I may have panicked.

I managed to get the rest of my morning routine done, get my coffee, and get into the car only about ten minutes late. I start driving, and exit the highway for the road that will eventually lead me to the airport. Except after I get about a mile down, I see that there is a cop car, completely blocking the road. So I have to turn around, go back to the highway, and take another way to the airport that of course takes longer.

When I arrive, I’m a little concerned because a) there are only 45 minutes until my plane leaves, and b) it’s Monday so I know the lines will be long. I was not disappointed–the lines were incredibly long. Even the line to print out boarding passes was long. I manage to get my pass and get into the Premium Customer lane. Although I was flying Southwest, I’ve always gotten into the Premium Customer line and showed my American Platinum card, and they have allowed me to do that. Of course, this morning the guy checking to make sure only actual premium customers are in the line gives me a hard time, but whatever. But then our line takes forEVER. A lady that got in the normal lane at the same time I got in line went through faster than I did.

By the time I make it to my gate, they are boarding. I get right into line and on the plane, no breakfast of course, but I’m just glad I made my flight. And the best part of my morning, one of my friends is on the flight so we get to visit. After chatting for a while about various things, we notice that we haven’t actually taken off yet. No announcements had been made, so we just figure we have to hang out for a bit longer. After realizing that it’s 6:35, and we should have already landed in Houston (where I was connecting to Nashville), I start to get anxious. Then the announcement is finally made: it’s a mechanical issue and we are going back to the gate. (BTW, what is going on with Southwest these days?? They have had some awful luck lately.) By the time a gate opens up, it is after 7 and there is no way I could make my connection. Taking the next flight means that I would arrive in Nashville around 1:30pm. At that point I decide to cut my losses, call my travel agent to cancel my trip, and go home.

So. That was my interesting morning. Hopefully my next trip goes more smoothly!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the frustrating trip I had to Ohio. I called it Part II because it was the second frustrating trip I have had to Ohio.  Here is the story of the first. (And again, I don’t really hate Ohio. Really.)

When I first arrived in Columbus, it seemed like everything was going to go smoothly. It was December, but there was no snow and the night was crisp and beautiful. I found the highway quickly, and had my MapQuest directions in hand (before I had a GPS) as I started the two-hour drive. I followed them perfectly, and was feeling good after the first hour of driving. Things went downhill from there though.  I got lost, wandering around the hills that border Ohio and West Virginia. I stopped to ask for directions, and the gas station clerk seemed shocked I was taking the route that I was. I ended up driving back and forth over the river, finally calling the hotel in desperation. The woman told me where to go, and then my phone went dead. (I also did not have a car phone charger. Of course.) Praying that I would remember the specifics, I kept going. Three and a half hours after I left the airport, I arrived at the hotel. As I was going to bed that night I thought, tomorrow will be fine as long as it doesn’t snow.

Famous last words. I woke up to a world covered in white fluff. Now remember, I am from Texas. We don’t have snow in Texas, and if we ever get an ice storm my city shuts down. I do NOT know how to drive in snow. Naively hopeful, I called my contact to see if the office was closed. She laughed. After getting ready (and praying just a little) I left for the office. Luckily, it was very close and I managed to get there without incident.

After successfully completing my meetings, I left to head back to the airport, with the advice and warnings I had received about driving in snow circling my head. Go slowly. Don’t slam on the breaks. If you skid, turn into the skid. Lots of room between you and the car in front of you. Etc. I left early, and had five hours before my flight. This turned out to be very lucky because it took me four and a half hours to get to the airport. I drove along at 15-20 mph, down snowy highways and small mountain roads. At one point we were delayed for an hour because of an accident. It was in. sane. Remembering, of course, that I don’t know how to drive on the snow. So I was extremely tense during the entire drive, and when I finally reached Columbus was incredibly grateful. Until I missed my exit.

At this point I freaked out. I was exhausted, tense, and SO ready to get on that plane and head home. When I called my company’s travel department for help, the very nice woman calmed me down and looked up the directions to the airport from where I was. “I’m never going back to Ohio!” I told her. “If I call you guys and tell you I have to go there, you say no!” Probably not my best moment.

I finally got to the airport. My flight was supposed to leave in fifteen minutes, but, in my first stroke of luck for the day, was delayed. The second stroke of luck was getting my upgrade. It’s amazing what a first class seat and a glass of wine can do for the psyche. When I finally did make it home, I crawled into bed. Right before I passed out I thought, I am never going back there.

And I managed to avoid Ohio for almost three years……