Welcome to the Wigwam!

Rockapella at the Wigwam Resort

November 20-22, 2008

Day One: Thursday, November 20

When we realized that this venue would be at a Starwood Resort, Jenn graciously decided to allow us to use her points to get a room for free, and she also got one for a VERY reasonable price for Wendy and Karla.  At the last Pella show that we attended, we told Scott that we would be at the Wigwam, and he got all excited, hoping that they would get to stay overnight there as well.  Rockapella had apparently played there a long time ago and he said that it was really nice.  So that made me look forward to it even more.

Jenn and I decided to get there early in order to take advantage of the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa.  We flew there after work on Thursday night,  I marveled at the fact that Jenn is a premium member for her car rental company, and her name was on the light board with the number of the parking space where we could find the car.  Neato!  I always feel like I’m traveling in serious style when I’m with Jenn.  We were really hungry when we arrived, and the problem we found was that we were still on Pacific Standard Time, and Arizona was on Mountain Time, so many of the restaurants closed by the time we arrived.  I remembered that I had seen a Cracker Barrel on the map before I left, so I called Bro to let us know where to go.  Unfortunately, that was closed, too, but we found the CB, which happened to be close to the Wigwam, and decided that we’d go there for breakfast in the morning.  Remember how much I loved their pancakes when I was in Utah?  So we ended up at a Denny’s, which doesn’t close.  The waitress marveled at the fact that I did know of a Denny’s in Michigan that closes.  She said that she didn’t know about it, and she’s from that area.  Oh well, maybe she doesn’t know all of the Denny’s in Michigan.  I happily ordered breakfast without pancakes (I was really looking forward to CB’s), and Jenn ordered a patty melt.  This is significant only to me because I remember our days in college whenever Jenn orders one of those.  She used to get that all of the time when we went to Herschel’s.  I never even knew what a patty melt was until we got to college.

We went to the resort, and found that there were lots of little bungalow-type dwellings.  I did a little bit of reconnaissance to find out where Rockapella would be performing, and the logistics of the tickets and such.  We then drove over to our room.  We were misreading the addresses on the doors and almost ended up trying to open someone else’s room.  When we found our room, Jenn was disappointed at first, thinking that our room was small.  I was just happy to see a robe and turn-down service.  

The bathroom was nice because we each had a sink, and you could actually walk into the closet.  You could even change clothes in there and probably iron your clothes there, too.  The toilet and shower area wasn’t very big, though.  Then we realized that we had an adjoining living room.  I mean, ohmigosh, it was like the living room in an actual house!  It was huge.  There was another desk in there, so Jenn claimed that as her office, and we had another TV in there, and a full fireplace.  The sofa had a pull-out bed, and we also had a wet bar, which had a very nice fruit and cheese tray with water and a note welcoming Jenn to the Wigwam.  

We also saw that there was yet another door from the living room and realized that it was probably another bedroom, so we decided that we would ask if it was available for our friends to stay there.   We unpacked our luggage, then sat down to watch TV and enjoy our fruit and cheese plate.  Jenn introduced me to eating a date wrapped in Muenster cheese.  Quite yummy, I must say, and I subsequently made myself another one.  We were very pleased with our room, and, as usual, giggled at each other until we fell asleep.

Next Up:  Spa Day and Pella Show