Scottsdale Cottonwoods

Nov. 22-24: Our suite of rooms at Scottsdale Cottonwoods Resort

I know I'm a little obsessed with the hotels and resorts we stay at. It's just that I never stayed in a hotel during my childhood. When our family traveled, we either stayed at the homes of relatives or camped out in a tent. So the idea of a hotel room seemed rather exotic and even a little intimidating.

The living room of our suite

I was 18 the first time I stayed in a hotel room, for 4 days back in 1973. It was an amazing experience! That's when my best friend Peggi and I were stalking the Osmond Brothers. We followed them to Las Vegas and we stayed at Caesars palace. And, yes, we did eventually meet them and spent enough time with some of them to get to know them. But that's another story...

The "kitchen" (actually a small wet bar) in our suite

Back to the present: I originally planned to drive down to Mesa (a 3-hour drive) and back, all in one day, to attend Riley and Celesta's wedding and reception. That would have been a grueling trip, getting up by 4am and leaving at 5am to attend the 9am wedding; then leaving after the reception ended at 9pm and getting back home around 1am. Not my idea of a good time, but being divorce-lawyer-poor these days, I saw no other choice.

The bedroom with 2 double beds is in the next room.

Then my daughter Sarah offered to pay for the hotel. Since we were driving down together, she really didn't want to get up that early, so I took her up on it. (She also paid for half the gas.)

We went to our lucky website, priceline.com, and bid on a hotel. It took us several tries, but we got this nice suite--more like a small apartment--in Scottsdale for just $34 per night.

The bedroom had a very nice open ceiling.

So I took one bed, Chris and Sarah took the other, and Dylan got the couch. The beds were pretty comfy.

The bathroom and dressing area

This resort has been around for years. It covers an area of many acres. The staff uses golf carts to ferry their visitors around the grounds.

Since we stopped in Mesa first on Friday night to help a bit with decorating for the reception, it was well after dark when we arrived at the resort around 10:30. It had also been raining nonstop all day and all night, so we were drenched by the time we followed a series of trails to our suite. We should have asked for a cart ride!

The pool was right across the sidewalk from our suite.

The grounds were quite beautiful, though. In the daylight hours it was well worth the walk. Except when I slipped on the sidewalk as we were walking to the car on our way to the wedding Saturday morning.

 

I was in my purple dress and black heels when my shoe hydroplaned! There was no preventing it; I was going down! Luckily, I still have good balance and managed to fall in such a way that I only landed on my bum and the side of my left calf. Only my ego was bruised.

More scenes of the beautiful grounds near our suite

We did miss the first snowfall at home while we were away. It was pouring rain when we left home, and we dealt with heavy rain, hail, and and thick fog (driving through the clouds that settled on the mountain tops) all the way to the Valley.

 

While we were at the luncheon on Saturday afternoon, Dylan texted Jacob back at home and asked what the weather was like. Jacob texted back that it was snowing hard! I do love the first snow of the season, but this time we were missing it for the best of reasons.

 

We headed back toward home about 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, and once we were past Globe-Miami we began to see the snow-covered mountains ahead along the road home. We got home just a bit after 5pm.

Clouds cover the top of this mountain.



 

I did try to be frugal for this trip. Eating out while traveling gets a little spendy. Sarah and I each made a tray of deviled eggs, which took care of our Saturday and Sunday morning breakfasts.

 

It was awfully tempting to stop for dinner in Miami on Friday night to enjoy the world's best green chili burros and red chili burros at Burger House. I'm not exaggerating. They are THE BEST!

However, I was strong and I spent Thursday evening prepping cheese, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and mayonnaise so we could stop and make nice, cheap ham-and-turkey sandwiches during a brief stop in Globe.

 

With the wedding luncheon and the light evening dinner served at the reception taking care of Saturday's meals, the only other meal we had to worry about was lunch on Sunday. I confess that I splurged for that one and stopped at Carl's Jr. on our way out of town. I do so love their Super Star sandwich served as a low-carb lettuce wrap! (And since there is no Carl's Jr. in our mountain community... so far...)

 

That concludes the tale of our Riley-and-Celesta's-wedding weekend. We had a wonderful time and loved seeing so many family and friends!