Roughing It

I admit it.  I’m not a cheap date.  I like the finer things in life.  Who doesn’t?

I’ve earned it.  I have worked hard the first 21 years of my career and it looks like I will have to put in 15 more, although my field of choice for those final 15 remains to be seen.   I have put in the time and was not and continue not to get paid accordingly.  But when I am paid, particularly by the hour, it can be handsome. 

I need time off and I need it often.  Stress is high and hours are long in my field.   Due to work circumstances, it is difficult to get time off or take time off for me rather than for someone else. Sometimes just staying in a hotel, anywhere away from my home and my life even for just one night, is equivalent to taking a vacation.   

Back in the mid 90’s, I agreed to go on a weekend camping and white water rafting trip near Lake George, New York at the beginning of spring when the waters were high, fast and challenging.  We were all young and single back then, not a care in the world and unjaded.   

I am not much of a camping person.  I need my 400 thread count sheets and my heavenly comfortable Serta iComfort mattress.   I have a bad back, I need good support. I can't sleep on a floor or on the ground.  I also require indoor plumbing, heating and central air conditioning.  Home cooking is hard enough, never mind having to build a fire and try to make something edible over a flame in an old, crusty pan.   

We stayed at a campsite that allowed for electrical hookup.  We spent the entire day on the river, and even fell in a few times.  The water was frigid.  By the time the day was over, my toes were so numb, I could no longer feel them.  I was unable to walk, and I was miserable all weekend, craving the comfort of a warm blanket and a hot shower.  I took a lot of flack from my friends that weekend.  I insisted on having an electrical space heater in my tent (I am aware of my limitations and felt that the happier I was, the less miserable everyone else would be), and as it turned out, it was a very cold night, and everyone ended up cramming into my tent!  So I had the last laugh.  Even the die hard manly men campers were in my tent. 

These days I stay in five star hotels, in multi-room suites (with bedrooms, dining rooms, kitchens, living rooms and bathrooms bigger than my apartment), require Jacuzzi tubs in my room, views of lakes, lagoons or downtowns, wrap-around balconies, fireplaces, personal cabanas, pre-check in privileges with key waiting at the front desk, room service, turn down service, and most importantly high end spas.  I like my fluffy bathrobes and slippers and those overhead rain shower heads or multi-shower heads (water from bove, in front of and behind) that clean you head to toe with nice water pressure.    I also need my neck and back massaged often.  And lately my feet.  

There are several hotels in the San Francisco Bay Area that I frequent often and highly recommend.  I enjoy staying on floors just for hotel members, with their own private dining rooms, or in the same room that I book by request by # every time I stay there (Parc 55).  At the San Francisco Hilton, I have a private outdoor balcony overlooking downtown San Francisco!  I can actually open my sliding door, step out the balcony and sit at a table and put my feet up.  It is sheltered, not windy and private.  And the view is amazing. 

My favorite hotel in San Francisco is the Parc 55 (although it has changed management at least three times since 2000, today it is a Hilton, which equates to more points and free stays for me), in which I stay in the same room every time I go, the room has more than 180 degrees of windows floor to ceiling.  The only wall without a window is the one the bed is on.  It even has a private dressing room that is all windows floor to ceiling with a sitting area in which you can just look out onto downtown and you feel as if you are sitting on a cloud, suspended in air, looking down on the city.  I can see Nob Hill, Financial District, Market Street and SOMA all at once.  I stay here so often, I am aware of how often they renovate and redecorate (annually it seems, maybe that is why they are now charging exorbitant rates now).   In some Hiltons, I arrive to care packages left in my room by management, with a personalized letter welcoming me (I guess they consider me a preferred member).   I have stayed in rooms where I walk right onto a golf course (at Silverado, you can do this from both the cottages on the main property or the suites scattered along the South course) and one hotel in Arizona I had my own putting green outside my sliding door.   

My three favorite hotels to stay at hands down are the Hyatt Regency @ Gainey Ranch (Scottsdale, AZ), the Fairmont Mission Inn (Sonoma) and the Parc 55 (San Francisco).   There are a lot of other great hotels in downtown San Francisco, like the Hilton (Union Square), the Marriott (SOMA), the Hyatt Regency (Embarcadero), the Saint Francis (aka the Westin) in Union Square, Sir Francis Drake (Union Square), Stanford Court (Nob Hill), The Fairmont (Nob Hill), Mark Hopkins (Nob Hill), the Galleria Park Hotel (Financial District, this is the first hotel I stayed at when I was interviewing for the job that moved me here!). I have yet to try the Villa Florence boutique hotel (Union Square), but it is on my list. 

Since this morphed into having a bay area slant by accident (I write without an outline, I just type and see what comes out), I am double-posting this on my bay area blog also.  So the posting I planned for that site this week will be delayed.