The Birthday Trip.

Awhile back, I posted a list of 20 Ways I Would Like to Celebrate My 40th Birthday. The gist of the list really was that I would like to have a lovely dinner with Will. Possibly somewhere out-of-town.

After throwing around some ideas for awhile, we finally decided what to do. (Or rather, I decided on a plan and Will thought it sounded like a fine thing to do.) And I don't think I actually ever mentioned it here? I think I just wrote about it on my Facebook.

We are going on a road trip! Out west! And I am very excited about it because one of our all time favorite trips was our road trip to Joshua Tree and San Diego a couple of years ago. We thought about going back to Joshua Tree but decided that it was a little too soon to go back to the same places. And then I saw something about the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs and decided that it sounded like a delightful place to spend my birthday.

And yes, my decision might possibly be based entirely on the fact that there is a photo booth in the lobby.

I ended up finding a really good deal on rooms at Travelocity so we get to stay in one of the rooms with a garden patio. And a king-sized bed which is always a treat for us because it usually means that we sleep better. And because the Ace Hotel is somewhat of a hipster motel, our room will also have a record player in it. Nice. (For the record, we are not even close to being hipsters, but that doesn't mean that we can't stay at hip hotels.)

We plan on doing a whole lot of nothing while we are there. Reading books by the pool while we sip cool and refreshing drinks. Eating good food. Taking lots of pictures. And since our room fees include bike rentals, we'll probably tool around on bicycles a bit. And while we are there I shall turn 40 and life shall go on.

Before we hit Palm Springs, we'll spend the night in Needles, CA again. Needles is about the only place to stay between here and there that is the right amount of distance/hours for a day's drive. At least this time I have a list of restaurants that aren't Denny's or the crappy pizza place we ate at last time we stayed there.

From Needles we will head down to the Salton Sea and check out what we can.

After Palm Springs, we're going to spend the weekend in San Diego with my aunt and uncle. We had such a blast with them last time we visited. And again, we probably won't do too much. We are such bad tourists because every time we get to vacation, all we really want to do is relax. Running around and seeing every sight there is to see doesn't always appeal to us. Boring, perhaps, but hey, it's our vacation so we can do what we want. We will of course be making a quick trip to the H&M there in hopes that I can actually find some decent clothing. (Not holding my breath about that though.)

One other thing we are really excited about is the opportunity to eat at In-And-Out Burger again. We stopped at the one in Yuma, AZ on way home last time and I'm sure we'll do it again. Although hopefully this time we won't be hung over. Forty year olds are far too grown up to get hang overs, right? Haha.

So there you go. That's the plan. And we can't wait.

And just so you know, Luis will be staying here at our house again to take care of the cats. They love it when he stays with them because he only speaks Spanish to them. He's also working on a remodel of one of the apartments on our compound so he'll pretty much be here 24/7 which is great for the cats and for us. We won't have to worry about anything.