Eeeeek, a Lizard!

This month I am doing lots of traveling, so my plan is to take pictures along the way and post them to my blog. Kinda like a travel journal. We will see how long it lasts. I am not sure what will come first - losing interest in writing the blog or growing weary of uploading the photos from my phone. I guess we will all have to tune in regularly to find out.

Today, I am in Phoenix. Typical for the desert it is very hot - 100 degrees hot. Of course it is a dry heat so it is not really that bad, mostly when I am used to the humity of ATL. I flew in yesterday for a meeting today and then I am heading out on a red-eye tonight. This all seemed like a much better idea before I found myself sitting in a Starbucks at 8:30pm local time, feeling like it was 11:30pm on my internal clock and knowing I had 3 hours before I could even board my flight. At least I was upgraded to first class so the 3 hour flight (and hopefully 3 hour nap) will not be too bad.

I love the desert. I love the jagged rock mountains, the vibrant colors, the rugged plants...all of it. Rachael and I had seriously considered moving out here when we were looking to leave VA Beach. I am glad we landed up in ATL, but I still yearn a bit for the western US and the desert.

So, when I booked my trip I was able to get into a swanky resort called The Phoenician for a few dollars more than the Courtyard I usually stay at. My intent for this blog post was to put up some pictures of the view from the hotel, like this one:

And this one: And they even had a "Cactus Garden" with some beautiful cacti, like this one: This one: And the one that became my friend:

After I went to the hotel lounge for dinner I came back to my room to watch a little TV and go to bed. As I got closer to my room, I noticed a hotel employee hanging out around my room. As I walked up, she said hello and asked me if I was staying the in "this room" and pointed to my door. I said yes and she informed me that there was a little problem in my room. Problem? What could that be? There was no "problem" when I left the room. I gave her a look that said go ahead and expand on that a little. She told me she was in the room turning down my bed (a nice service I might add...maybe I should teach my kids to turn the bed down for us before they are sent to bed each night) when she noticed a lizard running across my floor. Excuse me, did you just say "a lizard" because I could swear you just said "lizard." She assured me that it was a small one. Fortunately, she was able to catch it and was waiting for building maintenance to come and deal with it. I don't like bugs (please see I caught a bug) and I am not fond of lizards or really any type of critter. God made all these things to scurry away from me, not for me to have to touch them or deal with them.

We stood outside my room door with an awkward moment of silence when she asked me, "do you want to see it?" Well...I guess so. So into the room we go to find my new roommate, the lizard, on the middle of the floor under a glass cup. Now, I expected it to be small; I mean I would have noticed if there was a Komodo Dragon in my room but I was not expecting anything this small. This lizard was teeny - I don't even know if I would have noticed it or even cared if I did actually see it. It is hard to see in the picture below because he was flipping out under the glass when I took this photo, but if you look closely you can see him.

The thing about it all is that I usually do not stay at 4-star resorts when I travel. I mean I stay at decent hotels but this was out of the ordinary. However, even at a cheap hotel you do not expect to find a lizard sharing the space you are paying to occupy. And just like that *snap* this trip became memorable.

I did not sleep very well that night and I am not sure if it was the bed or the lizard, but regardless, I did enjoy the chocolates left on my pillow. :-)