Back Home.

So, I'm back from vacation. It was a reasonably nice time. The tours we did were good. The munchkin behaved very well.

The "resort" was somewhat less exciting than advertised. I ended up feeling a bit trapped since we didn't have a car. There were only 2 places to eat in the hotel. One was a fancy $25 an entree kind of restaruant and the other was a deli. They had 4 bars but no other food choices. We ended up eating fancy a couple times, getting pizza delivered one night(someone had a box outside their door, so I nabbed the menu off it), and we hiked to the McDonalds just acrossed the highway one evening.

While I'm on the topic of food... why is the only vegetable on a kids menu the french fry? In a fancy restaurant, they couldn't offer something better than that? Just once I'd love to see them offer something else - mini carrots and ranch dip, sliced strawberries, anything.

Other than food, the hotel was ok. There were 4 pools and we definitely took advantage of that. I just wish that hotels would get clever and offer nickelodeon or some other kids channel on the tv. They are already getting HBO, CNN, CNBC, TNT and Discovery. How hard would it be to add something for the munchkins?

The best vacation moments:

Seeing the Zephyr come down the rails to the Illinois Train Museum returning from a festival.

Watching the munchkin in the little kids discovery room at the Museum of Science and Industry, he was delighted by all of it.

Seeing that all the stereotypical Frank Lloyd Wright decorative stuff is embodied in the Unity Temple in Oak Park, IL.

The event organizers having an excellent Children's banquet (with a vegetable!) that included toys, games and babysitters(!) during the adults banquet.

Minuses:

Meals - either delicious and expensive or kind of yuck.

The stupid lady who hated the Unity Temple because she thought the Unitarians are a cult.

Too hard to find the other kids - which is what the munchkin really wanted.

Having my carry-on bag searched item by item because I packed the munckin's safety sissors - but only on the return trip.

And the really kicker - calling in to work as soon as I had a minute during business hours (which was Thursday) and finding out that they had paged me the day before and were pissed because I hadn't brought the pager or given them a number for my hotel. I hate my job.

Must be off now. Suitcases to unpack. Munchkin to bathe. Bed to reaquaint myself with...

TTFN