Fish Out of Water

Musings and observations about life from an East Coast native now living on the Left Coast in the California State Capitol since 2004. This fish has made her home in Madison, WI (7 years); Portland, OR (2 years); Las Vegas, NV (7 months); Middlebury, VT (3 summers); Marne-la-Vallee, a small town east of Paris, France (6 months); Middletown, CT (3 years); and Marshfield, MA, the fish's coastal hometown 40 miles south of Boston (17 years).

Name:
Location: Sacramento, California, United States

8.13.2018

Family Travel & Fundraiser

Friday, July 27-Sunday, July 29: Orlando
At the end of July, Mr. E and I joined others from the S side of the family to celebrate his cousin D's 70th birthday. We all traveled to Orlando (from Sacto, Denver, Chicago) for a surprise party organized by D's daughters. Such a fun long weekend, and D was definitely surprised and very touched to see all of the family and friends at the dinner party. A bunch of us stayed at the same hotel and were thus able to continue the celebration and family time throughout the weekend.

I'm so glad Mr. E and I were able to make the trip, although Orlando in July and a hotel near the Disney and other theme parks are certainly not my ideal destinations -- warm, very humid, and so much traffic!!! Luckily, the hotel itself was resort-style and quite lovely, with a large multi-pool area and some yummy dining options. And I did manage to get out for a run on Saturday morning, following the 5K route through the resort area. Oy! Very sweaty!

We had great travel karma throughout the trip, with no delays at all on Friday for our early-morning flight and meet-up with Mr. E's immediate family at the airport so that we could all carpool to the hotel and the party that evening. And thanks to Mr. E's status on United, I was able to utilize his First Class upgrade for the flight from Sac to Denver.

On our way home, we were delayed due to lots of folks needing extra time and assistance deplaning. However, Mr. E had gotten another upgrade to First Class, which he again bestowed upon me (yay!), and as I chatted with my friendly seatmate, M, he graciously offered to walk me into the United Club in Houston as his guest. That way, Mr. E could use the 1 pass we had on hand, and we didn't need to pay for my access. This was a much nicer way to spend our unexpected 3+ hour layover due to being pushed to a later flight!

For the home-bound flight to Sac, we were pleased to have an Economy Plus row with no one in the middle. And then as we waited, one of the ground crew came on board looking for Mr. E to give him yet another upgrade to First Class. Apparently, due to weather, other flights were delayed on their arrivals to Houston, so folks would miss this flight to Sac, allowing others to upgrade to their seats. In fact, several seats in First Class remained empty, but since I was on a mileage ticket, there was no way to upgrade me as a companion to Mr. E, so I just took his spot and he enjoyed the extra space back in Economy Plus.

Saturday, August 11-Sunday, August 12: Sonoma
This weekend, we headed up to wine country to attend a fundraiser for the UW-Madison's Garding Against Cancer program. The event was hosted at Hamel Family Wines, aka Kohl Center West, and included an afternoon celebration with food, drinks, and Bucky Badger followed by an exclusive 50-person four-course dinner with wine-pairings in the winery tank room. Mr. E and I attended both parts of the event, bringing nicer clothes to change into for the dinner after being very casual in our Wisconsin-wear for the afternoon. It was hot!!! We expected temps in the high 80s, but the late-day sun brought heat in the high 90s, so we were particularly glad to get a break from that during our tour and barrel-tasting in the super-cool caves as a post-celebration, pre-dinner break.

We met some other very nice Badgers and Badger-associated folks during the event, and of course we couldn't leave the winery without purchasing a couple of bottles of wine. The 2015 Isthmus blend adds to our "vertical" of this varietal -- we now have 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. We'll have to be sure to invite some other Badgers to sample the wines with us when we decide to open them all!

Finding a nearby hotel was very challenging for this busy end-of-summer weekend, but we didn't want to have to drive all the way home after the dinner, which ended around 10pm. Mr. E found us an option at Springhill Suites in Napa, where we could use our Marriott points for the one night's stay. Although the hotel wasn't near much of anything else, the venue itself was quite lovely, with a decent-sized and rectangular outdoor pool that opened nice and early at 6am (unusual for hotel pools but a great option if I want to swim laps) and a yummy breakfast buffet with lots of fresh fruit and other healthy options.

On our way home, we stopped at the Vacaville Factory Outlets, where we both had some good shopping karma (five new pairs of sandals for me! all on sale!). We also had amazingly good traffic karma, with no slow-downs at all on the way home, not even on the causeway between Davis and Sacto, which has some sort of congestion about 90% of the time that we pass through.

A wonderful wine-country weekend getaway to support a great cause, and Mr. E is planning to explore other opportunities to get more involved in the future.

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