Dove Mountain: Tucson

I know that I whined intensely over this part of the trip, but It did have plenty of highlights and I left with an new love of the desert! Who knew it could actually be very beautiful. I was a little bummed when I found out that this years leadership trip was actually supposed to be in Rio de Janeiro, before the disastrous market. But I can certainly see the wisdom of scaling back this year during such tumultous and uncertain times, as when they were announcing the trip over a year and a half ago. With all of the irresponsible actions of corporations, ridiculous bonuses, and corporate bailouts. We did not want to be under ridicule although the company DID NOT recieve a dime of bailout money. It does make me grateful that Chris works for such a financially conservative company even though underwriting can be exasperating at times.

Anyways moving right along, we took an arduous 2 hour bus ride to get to Dove Mountain I guess it is a popular PGA resort, but as we are not golfers we did not set foot on the course. The room was beautiful and the property was in such a beautiful area. Almost completely cocooned in a round little valley surrounded by hills covered in Suguaro cactus (the huge cylindrical type) and red rocks. Although I had never stayed in a Ritz Carlton some agents were a bit surprised that it wasn't fancier, but I thought it was very well done in a rustic sort of way. Their service, restaurants and pool were amazing! The had the infinity type pool and big huge fire bowls for the evenings. The shower had double shower heads and a huge deep tub with a flatscreen in the bathroom. The bed was so comfortable, I didn't even miss my bed at home (definitely a first for a hotel room). It had four huge down pillows, a down comforter and a down mattress topper, It felt like sleeping on a cloud!

It was freezing cold the first day and a half we were there. I was dying at the welcome reception, it was sooo cold. They had a poolside southwestern BBQ buffet. The food was to die for, but if you weren't sitting by a fire or a propane heater, it was freezing. Nevertheless, they had a great live band, and it was fun to catch up with old friends and make new ones.

The next day was the business session so even though it was cold I guess it was good to get that part over with on a day you would rather not be outside anyways. Chris went to that, while I hung out in the hotel room reading a book. Then the formal night was the same evening, which was indoors thankfully. It's always fun to have an excuse to dress up in fancy clothes for a night. Motherhood is less than glamourous, and it helps you feel pretty again. The theme of the night was kind of hollywood, so we came in on a red carpet complete with Paparazzi (event staff with camera's) and formal portraits. Then we all went in for the awards ceremony. Chris didn't get an award this year, due to a high loss ratio. It's aways frustrating to see him go unrecognized for situations out of his control, esecially when agents writing half the business he had written got awards. Although it was kind of fun anyways, because the company had just announced that Chris was agent of the month (nationwide) for the month of February so he still got some recognition for his hard work. Dinner was fantastic: filet mignon with halibut, salad, and a fabulous warm chocolate cake, and salted gelato with a swirled toffee crisp on top, followed up by chocolate truffles and petit fours. It's amazing after all the food we ate I only gained a pound and a half, the whole trip. We always get our fill of diet soda on these trips while the alcohol is free flowing, so at least we save on calories there! It was so fun to catch up with people that we haven't seen since the previous year though and we stayed up till the wee hours of the morning talking.

The next day we went on a 4x4 desert jeep tour. Which was actually really great. Our driver George, was a true cowboy. It was pretty funny to see all the drivers with cowboy hats, wranglers, cowboy boots, holsters (with guns, or knives), and the whole 9. We learned a ton about the catus plants, and wildlife and got a lot of pictures of desert plants. One of the guides even gave us a cactus "skeleton" of the Cholla plant (found on private land, wo we couldn't get fined). So we brought it home for the boys who love that kind of stuff. The rest of the day it had finally warmed up, so we headed over to the pool to soak in the sun. I started reading "Wicked" which was pretty lame, the book is sooo vulgar, and slow moving with a horrible plot, I would never recommend it. Although I hear the play is wonderful. Chris had fun with the boys on the water slide, and we had a delicious lunch at the Turquesa pool restaurant, drunken chicken enchiladas.

The only down side of the whole things was the fact that we were so isolated. We couldn't really go anywhere since it was still about 45 miles from Tucson and when we tried to get a rental car it was $200 just for Enterprise to deliver the car to the hotel, so we opted to stay put, and save our money for Mexico. They ran a bus into Tuscon for dinner so we went to the Firebirds restaurant and to Frost for gelato afterwards. The shops at La Encantada mall were awesome, but 95% of them were closed by the time we finished dinner, so we just window shopped for a bit.

The next day was P1 circuit racing. It was pretty much glorified go-karts, but I guess it is the only one like it right now in the U.S. They were alot of fun, but the event staff forgot to mention that we all needed to wear long sleeved shirts and pants, so we all had to rotate using the tracks limited racing suits, which made a 2 hour activity more like 4 hours. I didn't break any records, but it still was pretty fun, you can go sooo fast around the corners it was crazy. Our friend Steve and his son go a bit too close and he rolled his cart, tearing his racing suit to shreds. but fortunately he only got minor road rash.

We headed back over to the pool afterwards and had some really yummy sandwiches and Yucca fries (real cactus roots fried like french fries). Then we got all dressed up for the Hoffman ranch. The company bought us all cowboy hats and bandanas. So believe it or not I actually wore western attire, and didn't melt into a puddle of shame and embarrasment. Although it will be the first and last time for such an event to occur! Hoffman ranch was amazing! It was an incredible Southwestern style catttle ranch that was on the market at the time for a cool $40 million. The property was amazing if you're into that type of motif. They had about 6 HUGE BBQ grills that grilled up steaks and ribs that would've impressed the flintstones. The amount of meat was just ridiculous. They had a western band and plenty of line dancing, which I managed to refrain from participating in. I do have some semblance of self-respect to maintain. (I don't mean to offend anyone with my aversion to all things western, I just have terrible, stressful memories of losing our farm as a child, and even worse memories of cruel, foul, prejudice, and proud to be ignorant "cowboys" in the small town I went to high school in. (So needless to say western anything makes my skin crawl.) But we did have fun just watching a big screen they set up of pictures the photographer had taken over the last couple of days. a truly awesome way to top off the Tucson trip!

Then we had to board the bus again at 5:30 a.m. to catch our flight to Puerto Vallarta. The hotel was so awesome though, they actually packed us a a breakfast to go in little coolers we got to keep. Talk about awesome service!

Then bright and early the next morning (5:30 a.m.) We were on the bus heading back to Phoenix to catch our flight to MEXICO!