Desert Retreat

I'm typing this post up as I'm sitting on a balcony of a hotel room, listening to the desert wind rush through palm trees, birds chirping, and water splashing against the rocks.

Where am I?  Well, I'm in a desert at a hotel, as you probably assume from the previous sentence.  A better question would likely be 'why'.  My workplace is paying for a weekend retreat.  They do this every year, about this time of year.  I missed the previous one by about two months.  (It's a little funny to think of how much time has passed since I started this job - ten months!  It doesn't feel half that long, and yet at the same time I feel like I've been there a long time.  Which is nice.)

It's a bit wild that the firm does this, though I think it's pretty cool.  I've never heard of a job that had that as one of the perks.  They pay for the hotel room (villa.  It's more like a mini-apartment, really) and dinner at a very nice restaurant.  Mind you, when I'm paying, very nice is, well, $20 a person.  So I'm looking forward to tonight's dinner.

I brought my sister with me, and she drove all hundred plus miles to get out here yesterday afternoon, which was great.  I'm not a fan of driving.  We haven't done much so far except avoid the heat (the temperature's a bit high for my taste) by shopping.  She needed a new bathing suit (there's a water slide here we're going to check out later), I forgot to bring sandals, and, as there's a kitchenette in our villa, we grabbed some food to cook for breakfast today, lunch, and breakfast tomorrow morning.

Our plans are a bit vague at this point (hit the water at some point), but the general theme is mainly just to chill.  If anything exciting happens, I'll probably put up an addendum blog, but otherwise, see you next week :)