Some Time Alone

Tabitha and I celebrated her spring break by taking a short trip to Ojai. We left the kids with our babysitter Liz and enjoyed 28 hours together. It was awesome.

Tabitha and I have a history of staying short periods of time at resorts we can't afford. Add the Ojai Valley Resort and Spa to the list. Wow! I think I have a new favorite hotel. It's nice.

It's almost too nice for us working stiffs. The hotel is a Spanish style resort spread across oak studded hills. They seem to be going for golfing husbands and spa-ing wives. We didn't golf and we didn't go to the spa but we still had a good time.

We drove the Mini into Ojai that night and came across a wine shop. We were dumbfounded by the extensive collection of beers and ciders. I have never seen so many Belgian ales in one place. It was very hard to narrow our choices down.

After breakfast the next morning, we rented bicycles from the pro-shop for a ride into town. We pedaled through the resort to an oak lined bike trail. Once in town we stopped at the Arcade to browse through the shops.

Most of the shops were boutiques featuring clothing for wealthy old ladies. Not really our thing. We did find a toy store and a shop offering products from merry old England. That's more our speed.

We returned to our bikes and found that our bike lock had jammed. After struggling with the lock for 15 minutes, we gave up and walked back to the hotel. The pro-shop was apologetic when I told them we had to abandon their bicycles in town. The bikes were still chained to the bike rack 2 hours later when we left town. They might still be there.

It's funny how you look forward to some time away from the kids, but then talk about them almost the whole time. In spite of the unnatural connection we have with our children, it sure is nice to spend some time away from them. Maybe next year, schedule permitting, Tabitha and I can spend a little time alone again. We'll go for 29 hours.