I recently visited San Diego on business. I would love to say it was for pleasure because there is something about the Mission Bay area that I find very appealing and it would be lovely to see more. But, unfortunately time and circumstances just don't permit exploration.
Technically it really isn't a road trip either, but there was a car and driving involved, so I'm going to say it counts. Even if I didn't do any of the driving.
The weather really was beautiful - windy and cool in the evening and sunny and warm during the day.
Our hotel overlooked Sea World and in the summertime, Sea World has fireworks every night at 9:52pm which I think rocks because I love fireworks. I tried getting some photos - they aren't spectacular but they are a good first try!
Technically it really isn't a road trip either, but there was a car and driving involved, so I'm going to say it counts. Even if I didn't do any of the driving.
The weather really was beautiful - windy and cool in the evening and sunny and warm during the day.
Our hotel overlooked Sea World and in the summertime, Sea World has fireworks every night at 9:52pm which I think rocks because I love fireworks. I tried getting some photos - they aren't spectacular but they are a good first try!
The thing about business travel is this - it isn't glamorous or exciting - sure you may or may not get to fly on an airplane(s) and you get to stay in hotels and the company pays for it - but - because you ARE traveling for the company and because THEY are paying for it - one has to expect to be available at all times during the trip. That makes perfect sense to me, I plan accordingly and have no gripe about it. Its folks on the outside looking in telling me how exciting and wonderful it is that wears me down. I actually had someone tell me that it 'sucked' that I couldn't do anything 'fun' on my trip. What? I'm not there on vacation and I'm not paying for it so why would I expect to be able to do anything fun? I don't and it would be an extremely unprofessional expectation. For me - the fun part of the business trip are free airplane sodas and watching Investigation Discovery on cable TV (if it's available)! Oh and a super plus bonus? Going to sleep in utter quiet instead of trying to go to sleep as I'm being serenaded by a yowling cat - now that's some serious luxury right there!
These trips are also tiring, too - one squeezes as much in as possible in the shortest time allowed, talking & interacting with people you know mostly via email or by phone, all while lugging around laptops & luggage and dashing from place to place. Yes at the end of the day it is all about catching your breath before the next day begins!
And the funny part of all this (although it wasn't funny at the time) is that my co-worker and I (we travel together for these trips) always manage to be connected to things that are the furthest away possible - be it boarding gates, hotels rooms, elevators or just reaching the baggage claim! When it happened on the first trip, I thought it was weird but when it was the same on the second trip - well..... Luckily we didn't have any connecting flights on this trip like the last time!
When it is all over, what I ask myself is 'did we accomplish what we set out to do?' and when I can answer YES to that question and feel like we exceeded our to-do lists, then everything is worth it. And YES was the answer when we got home from this trip.
Honestly, for this trip I have to admit that the big bonus at the end of it was those 4 nights of beautiful fireworks! A lovely ending for a busy and productive day!
These trips are also tiring, too - one squeezes as much in as possible in the shortest time allowed, talking & interacting with people you know mostly via email or by phone, all while lugging around laptops & luggage and dashing from place to place. Yes at the end of the day it is all about catching your breath before the next day begins!
And the funny part of all this (although it wasn't funny at the time) is that my co-worker and I (we travel together for these trips) always manage to be connected to things that are the furthest away possible - be it boarding gates, hotels rooms, elevators or just reaching the baggage claim! When it happened on the first trip, I thought it was weird but when it was the same on the second trip - well..... Luckily we didn't have any connecting flights on this trip like the last time!
When it is all over, what I ask myself is 'did we accomplish what we set out to do?' and when I can answer YES to that question and feel like we exceeded our to-do lists, then everything is worth it. And YES was the answer when we got home from this trip.
Honestly, for this trip I have to admit that the big bonus at the end of it was those 4 nights of beautiful fireworks! A lovely ending for a busy and productive day!
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