Tag: Travel There

Things to do outside the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex

DESTINATIONS, Road Trips, TRAVEL, Travel Planning, United States

The Transit Adventure

Jane Sadek

Travel There – Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada

Bill and I usually get a rental car when we travel by plane. We like to avoid the hassles and constraints of public transportation, but what the heck are you going to do with a car on The Vegas Strip, except pay very expensive parking fees. So, I did a little research.

There’s a monorail and we’d used it extensively when we’d stayed at the Sahara attending a conference which was in the Venetian. It did a great job of getting us around then, but for the itinerary I’d put together, it wasn’t going to do us much good this time.

I looked into the Big Bus Tours which were so convenient and useful when I’d visited Chicago. More about them later, but for a tourist getting around Vegas, nothing seemed as convenient as the Deuce on the Strip! And guess what else!! I discovered Bill and I qualified for the senior discount. All we had to do was get to the Bonneville Transit Center and get a free Reduced Fare ID.

Once Bill had gotten in his nap and I’d moved into our room, we were ready to go see Vegas. First on our list was our senior discount!

From Paris to the Bonneville Transit Center

I am a timid user of public transportation. I always have visions of missing my stop and being forced to disembark in a ghetto, where I get mugged and perhaps caught in a drive-by shooting. I don’t know if Las Vegas has a ghetto or not, but I had a good map of the the routes in my hand and I was tackling the public transportation system with my handsome husband.

Another of my fears of public transportation is having the right thing to pay for my ride or coming to a point where I have to pay more and I don’t have cash or any form of payment they will accept. Irrational, of course, most fears are, but the ticket we got to take us to the Transit Center was good for two hours, certainly we could find it in that time without paying more – even if I had to get off and try again in another direction. And besides the street-side kiosks took credit cards.

Riding along in the Deuce, we craned our necks to see the sites along the like other tourists. After passing The Strat, we knew we were at the end of The Strip and that our destination was just a few stops away. Thanks to Bill we did get off at the right place. Dodging the busses to get to the building was dicey, but we made it.

Inside the station, they actually knew what we were talking about, which is always a plus. Often in my research I find something that no one but me knows about or they just did away with it a week ago, but not this time. We had our pictures taken and were issued with an ID card which would provide reduced fares until 12/13/2026.

If you are only going to be in Vegas for a couple of days, this is probably not worth the effort, but we used the heck out of the passes, so we thought it was great. If you’re one of those people who go all the time or you are staying for more than a couple of days, why wouldn’t you get it, if you qualify.

Now you’d think this was the end of this story and we’d move on to our next Vegas adventure, but not all my fears of public transportation are unfounded. Come back next week and see what happened next.

Accommodations, DESTINATIONS, Restaurants & Bars, Road Trips, TRAVEL, Travel Planning, United States

Our $22.50 Coffee Break

Jane Sadek
Photo by Quang Anh Ha Nguyen on Pexels.com

Travel There – Let the Las Vegas Sticker Shock Begin

Coffee is a very important substance in Bill’s life. I’ve found there are two kinds of coffee drinkers – the ones who just want coffee whatever form it comes in and then there are coffee drinkers like Bill. Of course, there is a particular strength of coffee he prefers and it must be hot, very, very, very hot. At home he actually heats his coffee in the microwave halfway through the cup to keep it hot.

But there’s more. He wants to purchase his coffee with minimal hassle, he wants a good pastry selection, he wants access to a variety of coffee accoutrements to doctor it to his flavor and there should be somewhere nice to sit and enjoy the coffee once he’s got it just like he wanted. Oh and by the way, the coffee should not cost an arm and a leg.

I’ve mentioned the predominance of slot machines and gaming tables in the lobby. There’s a lovely lobby bar, a full service restaurant, a pretty no-frills coffee shop and a stand-up coffee bar. And that’s it. No cozy sofas or easy chairs. No café tables. In fact, unless you want to play the slots, there is nowhere to just sit down and people watch.

Now Bill’s plan was pretty good. He’d scoped out both the coffee shop and the stand-up coffee bar and ascertained that both pastry choices and coffee beans were better at the stand-up option. His plan was to get his coffee and enjoy it in the Lobby Bar. What his plan did not take into consideration was the chains across the entry to the bar with the notice that only bar patrons were welcome there.

Now, I tried to point this out to Bill as we stood in line for our coffee, hot chocolate and brioche, but he wasn’t feeling very chatty. I got it. He’d been up and on the run since 5:30. He deserved to be left alone to enjoy a relaxing cup of coffee without his wife blabbering away about the attractions she wanted to see. Only I wasn’t trying to talk about what’s next. I was trying to keep him from making a tactical mistake.

So, when he got to the bar and encountered the chain across the entrance, he was not happy. Then, depending on his charm to get him what he wants, the way it usually does, he was irate at being turned away. He ended up drinking his very expensive coffee in the very boring coffee shop whose lights were too bright and whose d̩cor was virtually non-existent Рjust white everything and no reprieve.

That he had paid $22.50 and the coffee was only mediocre didn’t help one bit. To be honest, the brioche wasn’t much either. The hot chocolate was fine, but in truth I would have preferred to have a Diet Dr Pepper. That wasn’t anymore of a choice to me than a seat in the lobby bar was to Bill.

So, trying to make the best of things, we did a little exploring. We found the spa and Bill discovered he could get free bottles of water there, which was the brightest spot we’d had in this vacation, so far. We found the very elegant wedding chapel, with multiple wedding venues. And we discovered the CLOSED pool area. There wasn’t even a hot tub we could access. I wasn’t feeling very good about our Vegas vacation at this point.

Back in our room we had business calls to field. Entrepreneurship has it’s drawbacks. Once everything was settled, I went about unpacking and getting us moved into the room. Bill took a nap. We’d been in Vegas for 3.5 hours when I sat down with my travel journal to record my impressions up to that point, then I took out one of the books I’d brought with me and waited for Bill to wake up.

Come back next week and enjoy the adventure we got into next!

Accommodations, DESTINATIONS, Road Trips, TRAVEL, United States

Vegas, Here We Come

Jane Sadek

Travel There – Getting There Is Not Half the Fun

There was a time when flying Southwest was a blast, but that was a long time ago. They’ve “improved” things since then. By flying Southwest you were doing a very Dallas thing and you were rooting for the underdog, both of which I loved. Now, it’s just another airline and the whole “no assigned seat” thing, which used to be sort of fun, has morphed into an absolute pain in the neck. The only thing Southwest has going for it, as far as we’re concerned, is that Love Field is a lot closer to Heath than DFW.

Thankfully, this was an easy trip. Early, but somehow they all seem to be. We sort of miscalculated the time, but it worked out ok, because we were able to walk from the car onto the plane with virtually no stops. At the Las Vegas end, the package we won included transfers, so with minimal hassle we were dropped off at the Paris resort to begin our vacation.

Welcome to Paris!

Though we were not guaranteed to have any particular resort in Vegas, they said it would be on The Strip and they asked where we’d like to say. I said Paris, because I always thought that would be a cool place to stay.

I’d been to Vegas before, but never for pleasure. Once, when Bill and I were on the way to California, he stopped in for some stock traders event at the Flamingo and we stayed off The Strip. Another time we stayed in the Sahara, also for a stock trader’s event. That was a bad choice. Cheap and convenient, but way past it’s days of glory. The only other time I was there, Bill had been in Iraq and I went to a convention with my sister-in-law. We somehow managed to stay at the Luxor and that was very nice.

I’d visited the Paris on one of those trips and for some reason had been impressed by it. I also liked the picture of the rooms I looked at after I knew that’s where we had been booked. Arriving for our stay, I couldn’t imagine why I’d been so impressed with the Paris in my previous visit. In my memory, the lobby had been grander and not stuffed in every corner with slot machines and gaming tables. I guess they had “improved” it at some point. At least the registration area held on to its grandeur.

It probably didn’t help that our van dropped us off at some ignominious back door, instead of the glitzy art nouveau main entrance. We had to drag our luggage all the way across the casino to find registration. That did not jive exactly with the entry into our glamourous Las Vegas vacation I had imagined.

It was still morning when we arrived and let’s face it, unless you’re up for a buffet, there’s not much to do. Bill was not up for a buffet, so we paid $56 for early check-in and my disappointment continued. Shabby chic was once a decorating trend, but these sad, worn out furnishings didn’t qualify and the trend has passed. Our rooms was sort of like a furnished apartment in a college town, but the furnishing had happened decades before and since then everything in the room had been abused. Even the carpet looked as if it should have been replaced several years ago.

However, it was clean, so we counted our blessings and reminded ourselves it was free. Had it not been, we would have probably demanded a refund and moved over to the Bellagio. We also had what must be the worst view in the hotel. We could only see the roof of the casino and all the equipment on it. We closed the curtains and went in search of some coffee.

Come back next week and have coffee with us in the Paris lobby.

Accommodations, Attractions, DESTINATIONS, Road Trips, TRAVEL, Travel Planning, United States

My Vegas Slots

Jane Sadek

Travel There – and Get It for Free

Shortly after I won the trip to Vegas I was getting my hair done and Loree, the goddess of hair, who also happens to be my friend, told me she would also be heading to Vegas soon. So we compared notes.

Her travel secret is Facebook Groups. She travels a lot and wherever she’s going, she finds a FB group or two to follow. I confess to being a FB dinosaur. If doesn’t happen on my Newsfeed, then as far as I’m concerned, it didn’t happen at all.

It’s not that I haven’t tried out groups before, it’s that there was entirely too much useless chatter and I don’t know these people! I don’t know their priorities or their taste or their budget. Why would I follow their advice?

In fact, I don’t pay much attention to all that recommendation/review noise on the internet. Even if I know you, you’re not going to be able to influence me much. For instance a relative told me not to stay at the Mena House in Giza or go to Alexandria. This is someone who has been to Egypt many, many times. They should know right?

Was she ever wrong! My stay at the Mena House was one of my favorites – ever. And Alexandria? She was right that it is past its former glory, but it was still a fascinating place to visit and we had a blast. The Royal Jewelry Museum there is one of best I’ve seen and it’s in a beautiful old mansion. So, rather than take folks’ recommendation, I do a lot of my own research, but chances are I won’t be reading your online review.

However, Loree didn’t give me any reviews, she told me about an app – My Vegas Slots. I shouldn’t get started on apps, but we’re there. You can keep your apps. Give me a good old guide book with maps any day.

Every time I allow myself to depend on an app, it lets me down. I don’t even trust a GPS. Too many times a GPS has sent me in the wrong direction or just flaked out at critical moment or took me to a place that moved or closed. And that’s just the GPS. Almost every time I try to use a travel app to get around a destination, it’s a disaster. I don’t know if that’s the app’s fault or mine, but it doesn’t work for me.

However, the app Loree was talking about wasn’t really a travel app. It was a game that paid out in free Las Vegas stuff. We downloaded it while I was in the chair and I had hundreds of thousands of points before I left her shop.

A New Obsession

The next morning I sat at my desk and took inventory of the free stuff I could supposedly win on the app. It was good stuff! Free meals, free drinks and even rides on the monorail.

The next trick was redeeming my points. While you can start playing My Vegas Slots without giving them any information, if you want to redeem anything, you have to give them all the usual stuff that helps hackers get into your life. The app is sponsored by MGM Resorts and all you’re actually doing is signing up for their Rewards Program and you do it on their site, so I did it.

I redeemed some of my points and I was hooked. Because I am me, I went through the entire catalog of prizes and listed them on a sheet paper, in order of my interest in them along with the number of points they’d take. After that, every free moment of my time my face was glued to my phone, playing the stupid slots games.

And when I got to Vegas, I used the coupons I earned. A free drink here, a bogo buffet there and a free gelato at the Bellagio. Yes, My Vegas Slots is legit and if you get serious about collecting and using them, you can certainly be a winner in Las Vegas without even going to the tables.

Come back next week and lets head out!

Attractions, DESTINATIONS, Road Trips, TRAVEL, Travel Planning, United States

The Covid Effect & The Drawing

Jane Sadek

Travel There – We’re Not Going Anywhere!

Covid 19 became a thing in February of 2020, while Bill and I were on a vacation in Arizona. Little did we know it would be our last travel experience for a while. In fact, I already had plans to visit NYC with my bestie in April. We’d also signed up for one of those “Vacation Club” deals and planned to go to California during the holiday season. Instead we stayed home with the rest of the world. NYC was an impossible destination and while I planned various variations of the California trip, we went nowhere during the holidays.

In July of 2021 we made the trek to Michigan to visit family, but the pandemic certainly took a bite out of our time together. The whole air travel experience was awful and ridiculously expensive. The Grand Hotel, usually bustling with trade, was almost a ghost town. We didn’t have to wear masks, but the threat hung over everything.

When we came home from Michigan, we started talking about how to use our “Vacation Club” deal. We set things up for early October, but we could never agree on what to do with our time. Masks were still a thing in California, Bill had family he wanted to visit and I had friends I wanted to see. Because of our business we couldn’t stay away from home for long. In the end, we just decided to blow it off. In fact, it just seemed like too much trouble to travel anywhere, so we decided to blow off travel altogether until the world was better.

And the Winner of the Las Vegas Vacation is Jane Sadek

If you read any of my “At the Whim of the Gods” narrative, offered serially in the absence of any recent travel stories during the pandemic, then you know I often feel as if the gods are tossing me about for their own entertainment when I travel. It’s the only way some things make sense.

If make a commitment not to travel for a year to afford a special cruise, the gods arrange for me to win, not one, but two vacations. I book that special cruise and a few days later we have a disaster at a rent house, that takes a year to resolve and during it all, the last thing Bill wants to do is talk about which shore excursions we’ll take or to help plan our vow renewal. So, Bill and I argue about travel and decide we’re just not going to go anywhere, and what happens, I win a trip to Las Vegas.

Oktoberfest at Hyatt Place Rockwall

It happened like this. Through my networking connections I was invited to a grand opening celebration at the new Hyatt Place in Rockwall. It was in October, so there was an Oktoberfest theme with pretzels and beer. We had a grand old time. There was also a sort of scavenger hunt that sent you throughout the hotel to discover people and areas of interest.

I take my games seriously anyway, but the prize for this was a trip to Vegas. I have already been to Vegas and it’s really not my kind of town, but a free trip is a free trip. I finished up the scavenger hunt, with Bill scoffing at my heels, and went back to eating pretzels and drinking beer. There was a big roll up to the drawing and we were feeling a little silly, so when they called my name, we couldn’t even believe it – especially since we’d already won a couple of other prizes.

I chatted with the nice people who were sending me to Vegas and found out it wasn’t just a hotel room. Our airfare would also be included. OK then, we’re going to Vegas. We decided it would be fun to go during the holidays, so we chose four days in early December.

Come back next week and find out all about VEGAS BABY!!

Architecture, ART, Attractions, DESTINATIONS, Gardens, Restaurants & Bars, Road Trips, TRAVEL, United States

A Gastric Disappointment

Jane Sadek

Travel There – Chicago’s Millennial Park

The Bean

As I’ve mentioned before, Bill and I travel differently. I have my list and I want to check stuff off. Bill likes to meander. It’s not that I don’t like to meander. It’s just that I want to meander around something on my list.

At this point I wanted to meander over to Millennial Park and eat at Park Grill, but Bill just wanted to meander. He had no clue about where he was, what he was looking at or what was missing that might be more enjoyable. He just wanted to meander. So we did – for a while.

A Gastric Disappointment

One of my favorite memories from a previous visit to Chicago was lunch at the Park Grill in Millennium Park. Bill had been in a training class, so he had not joined me, but the memory of that lunch stuck with me. Yes, the burger had been good and the service attentive, but the real treat had been sitting in the middle of everything, watching it go by.

I’d done my homework and according to their Facebook page, Covid had closed down the Park Grill, but it was supposed to open just in time for me to share it with Bill. Not only was I getting hungry, but the meandering had not exactly offered up much in the way of entertainment. We finally turned towards my destination.

But wait, what’s this! I could see Millennial Park across the street but we had happened upon Chicago Cultural Center. As much as I wanted to get over there and find Park Grill, I took a deep breath and agreed we should go in and look around the Cultural Center. It is a remarkable building with beautiful architectural feature. Should you go to Chicago I think you should take a look at it, so I was not going to deny Bill a peek, just because I was anxious about what was next.


Awestruck by what we’d seen, we finally headed across the street, but there was no Park Grill. Their Facebook page had promised they’d opened a few days before, but there was nada. Now, I felt as I did when we stood at the empty showroom at the Merchandising Mart. Had I made a mistake about where it was? I didn’t think so, but just like at the Merchandising Mart NO ONE was there to help us. Of course, there was an app for the Millennial Park, but it told me less than I remembered from my previous visit.

The schism continued. Bill was still in meander mode. He hadn’t been to Park Grill, so he didn’t know what he was missing. He also wasn’t hungry yet, so he he wasn’t suffering in any way. I was desperate to find any food, but in particular I wanted the damned Park Grill to appear before me. Instead we discovered all the lovely sights below.

Bill was happy to wander all over Millennial Park and to watch the fountains forever, but finally I made him understand I was about ready to start chewing off my own flesh, if he didn’t feed me – and soon. Using good old google, we located a Shake Shack across the street and went for it.

Now, you may be a big fan of Shake Shack and probably don’t even have to look at the menu when you walk in to get your burger fix. Well, we didn’t know our way around and the wall full of icons and pricing didn’t help us one bit. We stood there lost as we had been for most of the day.

I am a Texan. I grew up in Dallas and now I live out in a teeny town on the edge of suburban Rockwall. Down here, we keep an eye out for one another and if someone looks the least bit as if they’re not sure where they are, someone offers to help them out. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Chicagoans don’t seem to have a ready eye to help anyone. Their eyes are glued to their phones. They don’t even look at each other. They may have to walk around you to get by, but they are still not going to talk to you. Heck, they won’t even look up from their phone!

Eventually, we did figure out something to order. I really wanted to try one of those Shake Shack Shakes, but Bill believes all fast food should be consumed with free tap water. I thought that after watching them go by during our entire meal, he might be tempted to share one for dessert. I may have even suggested it. He probably said, “Maybe next time,” which in Bill speak is, “Tough beans. I’m never darkening the door of a Shake Shack in my life!”

To start the day with dreams of re-living my Park Grill experience with the man I love and find myself at Shake Shack without the hope of a shake is a long way to fall in one day. It was time to meander back to our car, find our way to the airport and play that game. By the end of the day, we were home.

Come back next week and see where we are headed next!

DESTINATIONS, Road Trips, TRAVEL, United States

Surprising a Friend

Jane Sadek

Travel There -Evanston to the Chicago Merchandising Mart

Ludger and Bill Swap Tales

Breakfast at Le Peep

This day had a treat waiting for us, but the first stop was breakfast. For for that, we went to the Le Peep we’d found the night before. Delightful Evanston remained delightful. We walked to the restaurant and like Terra & Vine, it was a neighborhood thing. The waitress knew everyone and all the patrons knew each other. The food was good and so was the service. An added pleasure was a community group having a meeting over breakfast and we enjoyed the dynamics of their decision making. It made for an interesting meal.

Our day’s treat was a good friend: Ludger! His wife is Tammy and the four of us have been friends forever. Ludger, Tammy and Bill have known one another even longer than I’ve known any of them. We see one another infrequently, but the love never fails. Tammy keeps an eye on us via Facebook and when she saw we were going to be in Chicago, she let us know Ludger was planning to be there at the same time. She helped to plan a surprise for him.

The Chicago Merchandising Mart

After Le Peep, Bill and I checked out of the hotel, loaded up the car and headed towards the Chicago Merchandise Mart where Ludger was managing his company’s showroom during some market days. We found someplace to park and started looking for Ludger.

When Tammy told us there was a show going on, I imagined a huge convention center type of show with lots of booths and people and badges. “Show” means something different at the Chicago Merchandise Mart. In fact, things were so low key I’m still not convinced there was a show. We were able to walk right to the elevator and make our way to the suite number Tammy had given us. The front entrance of Dallas Trade Mart has a huge desk inside and you’re not going anywhere until you show some credentials. That’s not the case at all in Chicago. No one cares that you are there and you can’t find a soul to help you either.

The “can’t find a soul to help you” part became important when we arrived at the suite number Tammy had given us. There was nothing there. It was an empty, locked up room.

First, we doubted ourselves. We must have just arrived at the wrong place, because we didn’t know where we were going. We couldn’t exactly call up Ludger and say, “Where are you?” It would ruin the surprise.

Then we looked for someone “official” to help us. The closest we came to that was part of the cleaning staff. Let’s just say they were less than helpful. We found an open showroom and asked about Ludger’s showroom. The staff had barely roused themselves to greet us when we walked in and when they found out we were not there to look at their stuff, they proved to be as helpful as the cleaning person.

So we communicated frantically and furtively with Tammy. She communicated frantically and furtively with one of Ludger’s employees. The showroom had moved and soon we were armed with the correct suite number.

We strolled into his showroom and he was giving direction to some of the employees. He politely acknowledge us as if we were potential clients and then did a double take. He said he’d thought to himself, “How odd, they look like my good friends Bill and Jane.” Then he instantly realized it was his good friends, but his mind couldn’t quite accept it.

It was such fun. We had the opportunity to do a little catching up, but he was there to do business and had an appointment. We were there for some sightseeing, so it was just a short visit, but it was wonderful.

Come back next week and we’ll take you to Millennial Park.

Accommodations, Restaurants & Bars, TRAVEL, United States

Terra & Vine – A Sad Tale

Jane Sadek

Travel There – Evanston, Illinois

So, I sat down the other day to tell you all about this great restaurant in Evanston, which was just down the street from our hotel. I decided to google it, just to do a little fact checking and make sure my memory matched the experience you would have if you went there. That’s when I found out the restaurant had just recently closed. This was heart-breaking news.

I wanted to tell you about the warm neighborhood feel the restaurant had and about the great patio where we ate our meal. The food was great. The service was great. We were treated like we were one of the valuable locals who frequented the place, even though we weren’t. We hoped we’d be able to come back some day, but we didn’t get back in time.

A Small Town Feel

Now we had just driven through Chicago’s rush hour traffic. As a matter of fact, we got caught in some crazy detour that sent us around and around. All of that was just a few blocks away, but somehow we’d ended up in what felt like a small town.

After our delicious meal at Terra & Vine, we decided to take a stroll. Among the things we found was a Le Peep, a restaurant we loved but had not made it in the Dallas market. We made note for our breakfast plans and continued our very pleasant stroll.

It was really amazing. People would smile, nod their head, even say hello. Even the younger ones, which attended college in nearby buildings, interspersed with residential and business establishments.

Too Much Suitcase Time

When we returned to the hotel, Bill decided to check out the amenities and I took on the job of getting our luggage ready for the next leg of our journey. He came back to the room and decided to take a shower. Then he approached the suitcases and the straw that broke the camel’s back brought some friends.

Mr. Bill is a little bit spoiled. When we arrive at a destination, it is my habit to get us moved into our accommodations, by hanging his stuff in the closet, setting up his toiletries and arranging a drawer for his necessities – only on this trip, we didn’t stay anywhere long enough for that to happen and he’d been living out of our suitcases.

Apparently the biggest problem was that he couldn’t discern any differences in our packing cubes. His are green and black, while mine are solid black, but he’d never realized that. I kept finding my cubes laying open on the bed and wondered if I was losing my mind, but in hindsight we discovered that Bill had been frantically trying to figure out what was mine and what was his for the whole time. All that’s been resolved now, but that evening it was a storm in our teacup.

Come back next week and let’s see some of Chicago!

TRAVEL

Back to Chicago

Jane Sadek

Headed Towards Home, the Long Way

Luckily the road back to Chicago was not as grueling as it had been in the other direction, perhaps because the bad construction was earlier in the day and Bill was driving.

We arrived in Chicago late afternoon and headed towards our hotel. I used the Hotel Tonight app for the very first time and found a deal for a Hilton Garden Inn in Evanston at a pretty decent rate. I had downloaded the app a long time ago full of hopes of quick weekend getaways. That had not materialized, but it came in handy for this use.

There was one little hitch in our get along. Chicago was under construction. Our GPS would send us in one direction and the detour sign would send us in another. Can you say annoying? I know we went by one particular area at least three times. Mr. Bill was not a happy camper.

Our arrival in Evanston was a little happier. It was calm and charming. We found our hotel very easily, but we chose not to take advantage of the hotel’s valet parking (for which there was a charge). Instead, Bill dumped me and the luggage at the curb and parked next door at a municipal parking lot.

Once we were in our room, it was definitely time for Mr. Bill’s nap. Perhaps I was reading or catching up with social media, but what I should have done was catch up with my travel journal. My last entry had been leaving the hotel on our way back to Clarkston. That should tell you just how disruptive that little business related snafu was. My vacation had been derailed and a day later I still had not picked up all the pieces. I was merely doing what came next.

A Little Surprise

Thanks to social media, we had learned that one of our very best friends was going to be in Chicago the next day. Ludger (He was the one getting married in my At the Whim of the Gods Tale.) was going to be at the Chicago Merchandise Mart for a show the next day. The reason it could be a surprise was because while Ludger has no social media footprint, his wife does keep up with us on Facebook. So, as Bill napped I was cooking up the details with Tammy.

Next up was dinner. Come back next week and I’ll introduce you to Terra & Vine, a great place for a meal.

TRAVEL

Vacation Interrupted

Jane Sadek

The Trials & Tribulations of Small Business Ownership

And now let us interrupt your vacation and drive you to madness! People who work for others often think how lucky those business owners are. The employees have visions of them taking off whenever they want, never having to ask for a raise, always having someone else to do the dirty work and getting downright rich. Granted there are probably some of those business owners out there, but the rest of us poor stiffs are lucky when our income beats our expenses, we have to worry about all kinds of compliance issues and we work virtually all the time. Even when we are away on vacation, the phone rings and we have to put on our professional voice.

We’ve owned Spot On Images since 2017. Slowly and carefully we’ve built a reputation for providing great real estate marketing images to some of the best Realtors® in our area. I already shared the nightmare I went through trying to get out of town, but I thought we’d gotten the kinks out. I really didn’t anticipate much of a problem.

However, when I got back to my family’s house and tried to download the images our photographer had sent, it just wasn’t happening. Thank goodness, I have forgotten every little detail of the headache, but I don’t know that I’ll ever forget what a headache it was.

After getting the images sent off, I relaxed, watched a movie with my family and enjoyed the pizza we ordered for dinner. Since this time we did work out all the kinks, I anticipated getting all the photos delivered without a hitch the next morning. Then we were planning to go to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village. It was going to be great – right.

Well, thanks to Murphy’s Law, for the first time in I can’t remember when, the editors did not get the images back to me early in the morning, as they always did. When Bill woke, I was on pins and needles. He tried to scrape me off the ceiling, but it wasn’t doing much good.

I am deeply invested in the well-being of our clients. It’s why I stayed up the whole night before we left on vacation. I’m not the sort to say, “Gee sorry, the photos came in late, you’ll just have to wait, because I’m getting on a plane.” To make matters more personal, our clients are my friends. Our marketing plan is me. I went out and found these people myself and made promises to them. They aren’t faceless names who chose us off the internet.

In this case, the photos came so late that my friend was already wondering where they were. We have a 24 hour turnaround and the 24 hours had passed. I had let her know we had run into some problems, but she’d made promises to her clients that their listing would be up. We were late.

I sent the photos off as soon as they came in, but our rather new photographer had not satisfied our client with his shooting skills. Had we been at home, there were so many things we could do to resolve all this, but as it was, there were only so many things I could actually do. I did all of them and the listing went up, but not to the standards my friend and client expected.

By now, the whole morning was gone and I was literally sick from dealing with all the stress. Greenfield Village was not in my future. The guys and the kids found things to do, like tennis and other activities at the neighborhood’s country club. Maggie took me to a really cute shopping center which focused on local craftsmen. However, the day had been ruined. Too much stress and frustrations for a shopping trip to fix.

That evening, all of us had dinner together at the club. Things were winding down. It was time for us to head back to Chicago.