Am I allowed to have this much fun on a business trip?

I’m in Madison, WI, this week for a distance-learning conference. I came by myself, but sometimes traveling is better when you’re alone and can set your own schedule. Aside from the set times of the conference, I can basically do what I want, when I want.

Yesterday I flew to Madison from SLC (and can I just say that the Madison regional airport is the most beautiful airport I’ve even been in. Gorgeous neoclassical architecture, soul-soothing tones of beige and off-white paint, lots of light, and classical music playing in the main terminal. Normally in airports I’m counting down the seconds until I can get out of there because airports are Stress Central. But here, in Madison, I was like, “Hmmm, how long can I draw out this experience? . . .”).

Anyway, after I got to Madison a very friendly shuttle driver took me and a married couple to our hotel, giving us a little side-tour of the UW-Madison campus on the way. Saw their sororities and everything, so I guess I practically saw it all.

I’m staying at the Doubletree Hotel on West Johnson Street. Because my company is kindly paying for my hotel and $54 a day for food expenses, I’m living very comfortably this week. My room has a free wireless Internet connection (which at some hotels you have to pay $10 a day for!), a fridge and microwave, and “deluxe toiletries” in the bathroom, which I’ve interpreted as Neutrogena shampoo (and conditioner–always a sign of an upscale hotel), foaming face wash, bubble bath, sewing kit, and vanity kit. (I haven’t opened the vanity kit yet; no idea what’s in there.) Plus they give me two free bottles of water every day and Chex Mix for my munchies. Just as I started typing this housekeeping knocked on my door and offered to refresh my water and munchies (which I took them up on, obviously; you can’t have too much bottled water or Chex Mix).

Last night I checked in at the conference and picked up my name badge. I hadn’t eaten much that day (had basically survived on a half-cup of apple juice from my first flight and a package of crackers from second flight, plus half a bagel I picked up at a Starbucks in the Denver airport). So by the time I checked in I was ready for a good meal. I walked over to Delmonico’s on South Pickney Street. Mmmm, it was good. The tables were covered in linen cloths with linen napkins. I ordered a spinach salad and the 6 oz. beef tenderloin with their hot bread on the side. It was de-lish. As I ate I worked on my freelance editing job, since I’m a little behind on that. My waiter was very nice so I left him a decent tip. I spent about $32 on that meal just for myself . . . and I didn’t even get close to meeting my $54/day food allowance.

My conference started this morning, but today was just a half-day session. So at 11:45 I wandered outside the Monona Terrace Conference Center and saw a small farmer’s market between the Terrace and the State Capitol Building. There were lots of fresh farm produce, fresh-cut flowers and bouquets, baked goods, and, of course, Wisconsin cheese. The flowers were lovely, and I considered buying myself a bouquet (only $4!!!) since it’s my birthday today, but I decided I didn’t want to carry them around town all afternoon. I did buy a small bag of squeaky cheese curds, though, for $3.

For lunch I walked to Cafe Soleil, a place I had read about on the Web. It was a lovely coffee/cafe/bakery with small tables and pillowed benches. I ordered exactly what I wanted: a Wisconsin cheese plate (small baguette, selection of Wisconsin cheese, pear jelly, and apple slices), a pain au chocolate, and a hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was Ghirardelli (I recognized the flavor) and served in a nifty mug. The best part was that it was served all frothy. Yum. (John knows I like everything frothier, the frothier the better–orange juice, hot chocolate, anything.) The bread and cheese was quite de-lish, as also was the pain au chocolate. I worked more on editing while I ate and enjoyed my view of the streets north of the State Capitol Building.

I was really, really full after eating so I walked around the downtown a couple of hours. I visited the museum of Wisconsin history. Found it interesting. Did you know that during WWII Wisconsin was considered a treacherous state because it voted not to support the war and the political leaders made controversial statements during the war about the German descendants living in the state? Yeah, me neither.

I made my way back to my hotel along State Street, which is the boutique shopping district (a lot of tiny local merchants). I went into two shoe stores, found a pair of shoes I about died for, and then learned that they didn’t have any shoes in my size. And I don’t just mean that single pair I adored–they didn’t have any shoes in my size for the entire brand. Period. I guess I missed out on their mega sale three weeks ago where they sold out of a lot of the shoes that I fell in love with today. I’m still crying inwardly about it.

But the afternoon was not all lost. State Street has a Ben and Jerry’s. And I never go to Ben and Jerry’s at home because, let’s face it, we all know how artery-clogging their ice cream is. But today I went and had a sugar cone with a scoop of peanut butter cup ice cream. And, oh, it was so worth it. I ate it as I walked the three blocks or so back to my hotel. It was so hot and humid outside today that the ice cream started to melt instantly once I walked out the door. It was so fun to eat an ice cream cone (especially a Ben and Jerry’s peanut butter cup cone) walking outdoors on the way home to my hotel.

So again I ask, am I allowed to have this much fun on a business trip?

We thought we’d try mountain biking. I mean, we’re surrounded by mountains. We want to get ourselves a pair of bikes sometime soon, so why not try biking in the mountains?

BYU advertised a guided mountain biking excursion for full-time employees, so we did it. Boy, did we do it.

It was awesome in parts, exhausting in others, and a little scary now and again. But overall really fun. There were eight bikers in our group plus three expert guides. They drove us in a van 1/2 hour south, way up into the mountains near Payson, just north of Payson Lakes. Gorgeous country up there. I wish I had a camera in parts, because the mountains and meadows and birch trees and valley views were so amazing!

We saw a whole lot of trail riders (and none of them wearing helmets! I mentioned this to John in a worried voice, especially because there were a lot of kids riding, and he said, “Well, it’s not required by law to wear a helmet riding a horse.” Obviously he and all those trail riders didn’t learn how to ride from my mom. At our house wearing a helmet when riding was like brushing your teeth before bed. When they get bucked off and end up in the hospital with a concussion they’ll wish they had been wearing a helmet, and I’ll silently thank my mom for teaching me better).

We did about three hours of biking overall, which was a sufficient taste of it. We were tired by the end! Like I said, parts of it were scenic and lovely. But most of it was downhill on a foot-wide dirt path, over rocks and logs and around 90- or 180-degree turns. Three people biffed it pretty good; one girl flipped over the front of her bike and chose to quit. All in all, John and I came out relatively unscathed. Just cuts and bruises and general soreness.

Our conclusion is that mountain biking is fun, but we might be more of the trail-riding variety of bikers. More gentle inclines and declines and not so many hairpin turns and steep dirt trails.

When we got back we were tired and dirty! Here’re my legs right after I took off my shoes. It looks like I’m wearing brown leggings, but that’s just dirt. You can sort of see some of the painful bruises on my shins.

Happy trails!

So we went to Moab last weekend to celebrate our wedding anniversary. This was #4. We went on an overnight rafting trip down the Colorado River. It was a good time, overall.

Here’s a picture of us at our campsite.

John and I both have fair skin that burns easily, so we were extra careful to slather ourselves completely in SPF 45 the morning of our first day of rafting. Even so, by nightfall we discovered that we were noticeably red and in pain in the arm, leg, and shoulder areas.

Dang SPF 45 Sun block.

Friday night we slept on cots on a beach under the stars. A storm was passing nearby, though, so it was super windy for a few hours that night–which meant no sleep for me. Somehow John (a.k.a. Mr. Insomniac) seemed to sleep fine.

But the stars were gorgeous. Or so I heard (since my contacts were out).

Here’s a photo of the red mesas surrounding our campsite.

The night before our rafting trip started we ate dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Moab called the Center Cafe, which was neither on Center Street nor a Cafe. Go figure.

But the food was fabulous. We weren’t super hungry, so we split a beef tenderloin, which I guess is like filet mignon, and was so tasty. We told the waitress we were celebrating an anniversary and she said, “Well, you better keep an appetite for dessert, because it’s on us tonight.” When we got the dessert menu we picked the $10 lemon trio dessert. It had a lemon tart with raspberries, homemade lemon ice cream, and some sort of lemon custard with a French name I can’t remember. Yumm, it was good.

We stayed the night prior to our rafting trip in the La Quinta Inn. Not a bad place to stay, but pricey for a basic motel. I guess that’s what you get for going during tourist season. We thought our room was . . . interesting. It was large, which we liked. But it was sort of odd in that it was more decorated than any other basic motel room I’ve ever been in. I mean–look at all the Indian stuff! (And this is just one tiny corner of the room.) There’s even fake leather fringe hung around the top of the lamp and our very own artificial cactus arrangement in the lower right corner. They thought of everything.

They must’ve used a different decorator for the bathroom, though, because it lost all its southwestern flavor and went for a more oceanic feel. Check out these fish.

They were above the towel rack (brown towels, by the way; a little scary to use since all dirt is hidden). Some of them are painted on and others are those plastic 3-D ones you can hang in your bathtub. Fun stuff. Borderline tacky. But at least they tried.

Saw this wedding invitation on a bulletin board at the office and had to get a closer look.

Were you surprised as I was to discover that this is for a marriage in the Provo LDS Temple?

I called my mom today (it’s her birthday) and as we were about to hang up she asked her traditional closing questions: How’s John? (wonderful) and How’s Kyra? (fat)

My mom was surprised by this last answer and said she thought of Kyra as a slender cat.

Kyra was slender, and we thought she’d always be slender because when we got her we met her mommy cat, who was thin. But then again, her mommy cat lived outdoors and wasn’t spayed (hence why we have Kyra and why her owners offered to give us two more kittens for free, just to get rid of them). Yep, Kyra was slender just like her mom until she went under the knife herself and got spayed. It probably doesn’t help that she lives indoors and doesn’t have many rodents to chase after (not that I’m complaining about that).

So I promised Mom I’d post pictures so she could see our plump kitty Kyra.

See her tummy hanging out?

Kyra, for whatever reason, loves to lay on her back with her tummy wide open to the air–but she doesn’t like you to touch her stomach at all.

(Warning: The next image is a little scary, but she’s just yawning.)

And, finally, a picture I caught of the Great Yellow Nemesis. This bushy yellow cat lives somewhere in our neighborhood and can often be seen lazing on our fence line or even on our patio. Whenever Kyra sees the Great Yellow, she freaks out. She paces and meows a lot and doesn’t take her eyes off him until he’s out of sight. This doesn’t ever faze the Great Yellow in the least. He just lounges comfortably until he feels ready to move on to someone else’s backyard.

Below you can see Kyra guarding her precious territory (our house, which she thinks is hers) while the Great Yellow nonchalantly walks away.

Saturday is supposed to be a day off work. Other times it’s a day of work. Yesterday was a little of both.

We lounged a bit in the morning but by the afternoon we were hard at work. Our mission: to clean the master bathroom.

I’m happy to say we not only successfully cleaned the entire master bath, but we also managed to clean up our bedroom a bit.

I dusted our light fixture for the first time ever since moving in last September. It probably had a couple years’ worth of dust on it.

We had never looked too closely at the light fixtures, and we actually thought they were opaque, covered in a sort of white glaze. Turns out they’re pretty clear once you clean off the dust.

And here’s our lovely bathroom view now. We can tell that it’s time to clean the shower, or, actually, that it’s way overdue, when it’s hard to see through the glass for all the soap scum. Notice now how nice and see-through it is. That’s thanks to John, Shower Power, and a scrub brush.

It feels so good to clean something that needed it. Last night I went to bed way too late and was actually very tired, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off our newly dusted light fixtures. “Look,” I kept saying to John, who was trying to read, “look how clean they are! They glimmer!”

Funny how something so small and seemingly insignificant can make you feel so accomplished.