Mini Vacation "A Love Story"

This week I had a rare treat! My husband had to be in the city for the entire week and was going to be staying at the Best Western Saddleback Inn. Ding ding ding...the bell went off in my head! I decided it would be worth using two and a half days of vacation to meet him there in the middle of the week. It was WONDERFUL! I needed a break. While he was in his conference I locked my self in the motel room and read The Pioneer Woman BLACK HEELS to TRACTOR WHEELS "A Love Story" by Ree Drummond cover to cover (all 342 pages).

I even channeled my inner Pioneer Woman www.thepioneerwoman.com  and took photos of the room! She takes photos of the rooms she stays in when traveling and posts them on her blog! Note the beautiful watercolor print on the wall. I love art and no matter what point in the room I tried to photograph the entire print there was a glare. I got most of the painting in the photo below.

These next two photos are close-up to show the details of the paintings. The Saddleback Inn also features a gallery in the lobby, but I did not venture away from the juicy details of The Pioneer Woman and Marlboro Man. She is such a descriptive writer that you do not want to put the book down and I didn't! If you do not have her book you need to a purchase a copy. It is such a beautiful love story and made me belly laugh more than once.

Speaking of love stories....My husband got up each morning and went to breakfast with some of his friends. I am NOT a morning person and I do not normally eat breakfast. Bless his heart he brought me breakfast to our room both mornings. The first morning he really loaded up way more than I could eat that early. I was not hungry again until we went out to dinner that evening.

Another angle of looking at the motel room. It was a nice place with restaurant, saloon, sauna, whirlpool, swimming pool, and fitness room, but I did not even consider getting out to see any of those things.

That night I told my sweet husband that if he was going to bring "room service" to me the next morning to please not make it so much food. OK this is a beautiful breakfast...note how he arranged the presentation of my meal. I think I am spoiled?

I could not end the mini vacation "A Love Story" without taking a photo of the bath area. Every time I see a photo of a motel/hotel bathroom that was posted by the Pioneer Woman www.thepioneerwoman.com  on her blog I laugh. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Hollywood to be on the Vicki Lawrence show and the second time to appear on Steve Harvey's show....well I took photos of the hotel bathrooms. Everyone made fun of me for taking bathroom photos. They loved my photos of the famous HOLLYWOOD sign I took from my hotel window, but thought I was a real redneck for the bathroom photos. The first time I saw a bathroom photo on the Pioneer Woman's blog I nearly died laughing.

This was also a neat pre-mother's day gift, because the second night we ate dinner with our daughter who lives in the city. That will be another blog post...