Girl’s Weekend Away in Laveen, Arizona

I hang out with a large group of girlfriends, some from as far back as 5th grade. We like to have fun. A couple of our friends were at a benefit and were feeling no pain when they bid on a 5 day rental in Laveen, AZ. In their somewhat inebriated state, they kept bidding it up until they won. I had never heard of this town and wondered where it was located. It was in the Phoenix area and ended up being close enough to places like Scottsdale, Tempe, etc. that it was OK for us.

So eight girls ordered our airfare together one night and waited for our trip. On the flight, we were actually approached by a flight attendant who smilingly told us to keep it down. We were spread out over a couple of aisles and some innocent people had to sit with us. One of our social butterflies struck up a conversation with a gentleman and we found out that we knew his ex-wife and her new beau.

Needless to say, there was a lot of storytelling and laughter. Even the flight attendant who chastised us joined in at one point. The funniest thing was when we landed, I overhead two people being pushed in wheelchairs telling the story about us perfect strangers knowing the ex-wife of another passenger. He and his ladyfriend were laughing as they were being pushed through the airport. We left our mark on that flight.

Our Abode

I brought my portable GPS with and it brought us to our destination, a gated golf community located in Laveen, Arizona.  We rented a van and a sedan so we could have one car that would fit us all (once the luggage was out) and another car in case people wanted to do different things.  Eight girls isn’t our biggest group, but it’s difficult getting everyone to agree on one destination all the time.

The house was newer and nice with a pool and a view of the golf course.  It was decorated very nicely and we all fit in well.  Normally, on our weekends it’s first-come, first-served with bedrooms.  That works when we’re driving and coming in at different times of the day.  But we had to figure out a more diplomatic way to assign bedrooms so we pulled names.  There’s usually nicer bedrooms and with our group someone had to sleep on the sofabed in the loft area.  I got a bedroom.

One of the girls in our group was a runner and would go out in the morning to do her run.  She said she ran into an area that she didn’t feel very safe in so she stayed away from that area on subsequent days.  Otherwise, we felt comfortable and safe in our rented house.

Having fun at the pool

We Had Fun Visiting Surrounding Towns

We took a trip to Sedona (I had been there once before), a night trip to Tempe (a bunch of older broads mixed in with the college kids), a day and evening trip to Scottsdale (shopping, dining and drinking) and one of the girls even visited a friend of her late mother’s who had retired to AZ many years ago.  That was a trip in itself as her Mom’s friend lived with her sister and husband in a house that was full of French provincial furniture with sofas and chairs covered in plastic!  I mentioned it in my Bringin’ the 70′s to Arizona post.  These sisters were better than most stand-up comedy acts I’ve seen.  Three of us went together to drop off our friend that was spending the afternoon with them and we went in the house to meet them.  It was non-stop laughter.  I hope I can keep my sense of humor into my 80′s and 90′s.

One of my good friends and I drove to the new location for Out of Africa, which I will write a separate post on.  I’ve been there before with my son and I’m not sure if I like the new venue better or not.

Old and new friends in a Scottsdale bar

Friends, Fun and Food

Just like most of our other girl’s weekend aways, but IMO a much better area.  We normally go to Michigan, Wisconsin and have gone twice to Galena, IL.  We even traveled as a group to Key West, FL to surprise my friend on her 50th birthday (that was probably the best but I ended up getting the flu really bad and was sick most of the time, although I never stayed in my room).

This had to be a close second to Key West and is probably only 2nd because I didn’t know everyone in this group.  I always like meeting new people but there was a little tension sometimes about where we were going to go and how to split the cars up. 

My First Sand Storm

I’ve been to Arizona many times and have never been in a sand storm until this visit.  We were coming home from Sedona and all of a sudden were in the middle of a bad sand storm.  Kudos to our driver who didn’t panic and got us through it.  There was no visibility!  I have since been told we should have pulled over and stopped, but we ended up being OK.  That was scary.

Laveen?

Several people we met were kind of surprised we were staying in Laveen.  I guess it’s kind of out there and doesn’t offer much to do.   So I have no reason to ever go back there but it worked out fine for an inexpensive trip that was close enough to other towns that we didn’t feel like we were too far away from everything.