The Traveling Steve's

After a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend visiting my Mom in Virginia, we flew home to Orlando Sunday night and stayed at the Orlando Airport Hyatt Regency, lately our second home for it’s convenience.

DOS and I had the breakfast buffet Monday morning at the hotel which is always a great way to start the week.  I then flew to Minneapolis, via Chicago on American Airlines, and was upgraded on both segments which was nice.  One in MSP, I rented a car at National Car Rental, and drove to my hotel, the Residence Inn in Eden Prairie, MN.  This was one of the older; i.e. original type Residence Inn’s, that had multiple buildings in a campus or apartment like layout.  I actually prefer this as it’s more intimate, and you can park right at your unit and walk right in, vs taking an elevator in a hotel-like environment.

I was busy all week as I was working in Glencoe, which was a 45 minute – hour drive away, but was a nice an scenic drive and fortunately the traffic was going the other direction, so it was more of a reverse commute.  I had a good week there, but unfortunately worked long hours, and didn’t have time to sightsee.  I posted this photo on Facebook as my ‘entertainment’ for the week; this ‘driving school’ I went past every day going to work.  I thought it was funny and took a photo.

We had rain everyday but one while I was there, and it was cool (not freezing, but cool) compared to Florida, but I had brought a sweatshirt with me, so I was fine.  I enjoyed the drives thru the Minnesota farmland each day, and saw lots of Silos.  I’ve always liked Silos, and I don’t know what it is about them, but they seem so peaceful in the country setting, and I always like taking photos of them.  One of my favorite photos I took years ago on Thanksgiving day in Virginia of a snow-covered Silo in the county-side I had enlarged to poster size.  These are a couple of photos I took while driving thru the Minnesota country-side.

On Friday I flew home to Orlando via the 1:20pm flight to DFW, connecting in Dallas for an hour or so, and then nonstop to Orlando.  I made a quick stop in the DFW Admiral’s Club, and then had a nice First Class dinner flight back to Orlando.  I had pre-ordered my meal of Filet and Lobster mac-n-cheese, but unfortunately the Flight Attendant dropped my filet on the floor, so I only had the mac-n-cheese.  She was so apologetic I felt worse for her than she did for me.  Not a problem – really I said.  Then later I felt even worse when she brought a glass of red wine to my seat while I was in the mens room, and it fell off the tray shattering on the floor in front of my seat!  I came back and she was on her hands and knees, and I’m like ‘what happened’.  Again, no worries I told her; I didn’t want her to cut herself on the glass.  Other than the two meal and drink incidents, it was a good flight.

I watched the move about Steve Job’s, but missed the last 20 minutes of the movie as I tuned in late, and we landed early.  I’m in the technology business, but the movie was more about the  marketing launches of Apple than the behind the scenes technical stuff, meetings etc I would have expected.

Anyway, DOS was there in Orlando to pick me up, and we had a good weekend at home.  I hadn’t been home for two weeks so I had a bit to catch up on around the house.  We also had to go across the street to see our dog friend Charlie, at our neighbors Kenny and Mary’s house.  Charlie was glad to see us!

The weekend weather was beautiful, and I took a dip in the pool, trying out one of the cool floating plastic wine glasses I bought recently on my Calistoga CA trip from Imprint Winery.  They actually do float, and have not base so you can stick them in the sand at the beach too!  Although made for wine, I used mine for a Samuel Adam’s summer seasonal brewski.

DOS also had bought us each a nice set of Bose 25 noise-cancelling headsets as we have a few long trips coming up, and he loved the ones the airplane had on his recent Hawaii trip.  Look forward to using those on Monday!

On Saturday night we had our friends Ben and Tom over for dinner, and had some steaks and vino.  It was great to catch up with them.

Now it’s Sunday night, and we’re once again in the Hyatt Hotel Orlando Airport, after just finishing dinner at McCoy’s Restaurant.  We are both flying out in the morning; Steve (DOS) on another mileage fun week of trips to San Juan, Las Vegas New York and Miami, while I’m flying up to Akron Ohio for work this week.  It’s now mid-May, and I’m looking forward to Memorial Day weekend already as we’re heading to Honolulu for fun for a few days.  Until, then . . . Have a great week!

I’m already not looking forward to the TSA line in the morning, shown here Sunday evening.  At least I have PreCheck and CLEAR!