vacation, all I ever wanted

Here we are in Palm Springs, or a close proximity, and I'm tapping away to the dimmest light in our room while Luke is sleeping and making impossibly cute baby murmering noises in the background. I was feeling somewhat light-hearted and happy, but now that I read Joe's blog I'm mired in gloom and sadness. My biggest complaint right now is there's not much of a view from our otherwise well-appointed hotel room, so what is in fact my problem?

Pause for deep sigh.

Luke has been asking friends and his teachers for days, "Do you love Palm Springs?" He's been almost as excited as any one of us about this trip, and yet once we're here it's been hard for him to identify exactly which part is Palm Springs. "Is this Palm Springs?" he's been asking, at the outlet stores, pulling into the hotel, in the lobby lounge, and again at breakfast. One thing he knows for sure is In N Out burger. Yesterday he napped on the long drive here and seemed to wake up with a start when we passed an In N Out burger on the freeway in the middle of who-knows-where. "That's In N Out Burger!" he declared, and then promptly turned his head, shut his eyes, and fell back into a deep sleep. It's a special kind of radar.

This resort is...hmmm...a little strange, at least for our current needs. They're bending over backwards to make it a great stay for us. When we got in we asked if we could get a refrigerator (aside from the super-full minibar), and within moments a man came in wheeling a fridge that's about twice the size of what I had in my college dorm room (no charge). But our special rate/stay here seems to have forced us into some kind of 90-minute sales-presentation-that's-not-a-sales-presentation, which we may or may not be able to get out of tomorrow. Plus the resort as a whole is very spread out, with only sporadic golf-cart-shuttle stops, and you have to walk sizable distances to places like the lobby, restaurants, pools, etc. That would be fine if I were at a normal activity level but since I'm not really supposed to be walking at all I've been depending on Dave to chauffer me/us on ridiculously short car trips. Today I watched Luke in the hotel's kiddie park while Dave was on a work call; dealt with a meltdown when I told Luke he couldn't dig in the sand in the parking lot with the croquet mallets, and then wound up catching the next available shuttle-to-anywhere in complete mom desperation. I can't tell any of the buildings apart, so I had the driver drop us off at the corporate center, thinking it was the main lobby, and then there we were, stranded, sans Dave, watching some bored suits talk on their cell phones. So it's been a little strange.

I told Dave today that I would love to be enjoying this vacation at my normal pace and at a normal anxiety level but almost every vigorous movement reminds me that everything is still not quite OK with my body, and I'm worried. It doesn't feel so good. Let's hope Luke is able to at least remain somewhat oblivious and enjoy the rest of the time here.