Diana Tkach

I truly and honestly had a great time in Arizona. I was just there with Don for Christmas up to New Year’s in Sedona, then up to Las Vegas, then down to the Phoenix suburb, Litchfield Park.

My California vacation in August prepared me to see mountains (and that’s one thing I miss, living in Michigan), and that’s exactly what we saw in Arizona: it’s a very mountainous state. The rock formations of Sedona, however, were something totally different and I really enjoyed them. I wish that the town wasn’t so quiet—or maybe I wish that I had more of a drive to want to go exploring. Every time I got out of our freaking Impala, I got static shocked. So I made a plan not to get in and out of the car. Static shock is the one thing I don’t miss about Arizona.

Our big adventure day was the Jeep tour through the Broken Arrow park. It’s where the bulk of my pictures came from. We had glorious weather that day (we drove up 89A, half way to Flagstaff because the scenery was so beautiful)—the day that started out cold and cloudy quickly turned warm and sunny. This was a sunburn alert day.

When we left for Vegas, Sedona got pelted with 14 feet of flooding, and we read in the papers that by the afternoon of the day we left, 89A was closed. Lucky us.

Of course, our side trip to Vegas was perfect as always. We stayed at the Bellagio, which is where I want to retire to one day (love Bellagio). We dined at FIX and I ordered a $70 Kobe steak. Our bill was like 220 something dollars. (I think it was just $30 cheaper than Little Palm Island for AJ’s birthday!) The weather didn’t cooperate and it rained all day, but the water show went on anyway, and I’m glad it did. I would totally (and I’ve said this a million times) go back just to see that water show.

The drive to Litchfield Park was memorable. We passed tons of cactus patches—you know, the ones you always think of when you think of Arizona… We stayed at the Wigwam Resort and Spa in their Whitwell Suite overlooking the pool. I remember having a spa day with a massage and pedicure. Oh, and they drove you around in golf carts!

I still tell the story of the Arizona Kitchen (their 5-diamond restaurant) and how we got a $100 meal for free because our room wasn’t ready at 6pm because the previous guests liked it so much that they wanted to stay longer. And also, how it was the best filet minion I’ve had (it was served on a scalloped potato soufflé with sautéed mushrooms!) and how Don tried to abscond with the chocolate cactus to eat in the room later, only to drop it in the lobby of the hotel.

I was glad to be home, mind you. I told Don we weren’t taking any 2005 vacations (I’ve already got two lined up). I found out that I hate sitting coach, and that I hate flying for more than 3 hours.

I won’t have a desperate need to go back to Arizona, but I’ll have some happy memories in the back of my mind.

There’s not much going on in Nevada other than Las Vegas and a while lot of gambling. I visited Vegas twice last year, and am trying to put together a trip for me and AJ for our birthday celebration.

The fist Vegas trip was a day trip. Don and I drove four hours from California’s Rancho Mirage. The consierge gave us some shit photocopied map that didn’t have a lot of roads labeled, so I was in a pretty bad mood the entire four hours there and the four hours back (I like to know where I’m going). Everytime we made it to a city that was listed on the map (and I don’t think that stupid thing was even to scale), I got just a little more thankful that I didn’t have to drive.

When we crossed the border into Nevada, the first thing we saw was this gambling mirage. It’s the first thing we saw past the Hoover Dam, too. This cross-over was the moment I realized there were going to be a lot of slot machines in my future.

Driving to Vegas is a very unique experience if you’re coming from California. I believe it was I15 we were on (after driving around aimlessly through the Mojave Desert for several hours) when we started seeing signs for Vegas. Then I thought I saw a city approaching.

I thought it was going to be cooler. My moms described it as this strip in the middle of nowhere, but I was staring at it for 30 minutes before we were able to exit the expressway. I wanted it to be more spectacular. Coming from Arizona was total shit because you have to drive through the suburbs (basically from the Hoover Dam to the Strip). By the time we finally got to the Bellagio, it was raining, the traffic was seriously crappy, and driving through the slums of Las Vegas totally turned me off.

During our day trip, we parked over at Caeser’s Palace. The one thing I’ll never forget is how painfully smokey it was in that casino. Just as we were leaving, I played $40 in a quarter slot and nearly hacked my lungs out. The day trip also brought me to the Bellagio, and the realization that I would have to come back again one day. I spent $20 on dollar slots because Don saw his lucky number. I lost all $20 on just a few spins.

We left the day trip Vegas in just four hours because Don didn’t like the clinging of the slot machines. I didn’t think there would even be a second trip to the Vegas and to my surprise, it was Don who suggested a side trip to Vegas from Arizona.

The Bellagio trip came at the ass-end of December 2004. We stayed in Sedona (a beautiful town) and then visited the Grand Canyon before hitailing it over to the Strip. When we finally arrived in Vegas, we got the weather reports that Sedona and that entire area was getting pelted with rain and in two days the water levels reached 14 feet.

We had dinner at FIX that evening and walked around the shops at Bellagio. The fountains made my entire trip, and reaffirm my love for the Bellagio. The next morning I taught Don how to play video poker (I gambled four hours the night we got there) while we were waiting for the Buffet to open. The brunch (champagne for me, please) was really amazing, and I will never forget how delectible their pumpkin cheesecake was (AJ, remember this).

After we checked out of the Bellagio, we headed over to the Vosges Haut Chocolat boutique at Caesar’s Forum Shops, only to have them get the key stuck in the door and lock themselves out. It was so hilarious that I had to blog about it. There are pictures in the December 2004 archives.

The Vegas trip ended on a sour note when Don found out how much I spent on chocolates, but I am not deterred. Now I’ve just got to find a way to get AJ down there. It would be nice to see the rest of the strip!

I finally made it to California last year and boy am I in love. I’m seriously considering buying a time share over in Rancho Mirage, it was beautiful!

Some memories:

The first thing that happened was Alamo charged me $100 over the price of my rental car because I had requested a convertible but decided to switch to the Impala because of the Miami incident (broke a windshield in the Keys). Then Don made me drive us to the villa, even though this was my first time zone change, my first time seeing mountains, and my first time driving in California (carpool lanes be damned).

The reason I don’t like to drive with Don in a new region is because I’m an anal driver. It’s not that I do the speed limit or read every sign, but I love to know exactly where I’m going, how far it is, and I need to be constantly updated. AJ can attest to this, every time we saw a sign for a new Key, I made him update me on how many miles to Key West. That was a long drive. But Don went to sleep. I remember being horrified because he didn’t even want to help me got to the freaking expressway before zonking out. It was a fiasco and we finally stopped in Cabazon to not only eat, but change drivers.

A few days later (Monday) we made the trip to Newport Beach, and it was the first time I’d seen the Pacific Ocean. After two hours in the ocean, I prompty was sun poisioned and spent the next day in bed, recovering.

The day after that (Wednesday), Don took me on a four hour drive through the Mojave Desert to the jem of the valley: Las Vegas. We were there about five minutes before Don started complaining about how he hated Vegas. He’s been there before, and just took me so that I could experience it. We were in Vegas for four hours before turning back. On the way back to Rancho Mirage, Don proposed to me in the middle of the Mojave, at a fork in the road named Kelso, while the sun was setting.

That night I was so sun poisioned that I called the Emergency Room at the hospital I work at back in Michigan. It was midnight in CA, 3am in MI. When I asked Don to go find me some Benadryl, he told me he was reading and to leave him alone.

By Friday, I had a mask of dead skin on my face (literally ten layers of dermis). Don and I embarked on our last day trip through the San Bernadino Mountains and down to San Diego to visit the zoo. I remember putting on so much SPF on my dermis masque that the dead skin clinging on to my face looked painred white, but I did it in the name of combating UV rays. The zoo was amazing and we had lunch at the 4-star restaurant that was situated up in the trees! It was beautiful even if my face looked gross.

Driving through the mountains is something I’ll never forget… Those roads that go back and forth up the mountain are really real—and that scared me! Look at my August archives to see pictures from this harrowing journey.

By Saturday, the day we were going home, my chest and shoulders were blistering, and I had spent the better half of Friday evening picking the dead dermis masque off my face. It was a painful trip home, but leaving California just makes me want to go back there again.

Well. We’re at the point in my travel chronology where we actually have some fresh memories! 2004 was the year of three new states, including Minnesota.

Although my time in Minnesota was short (2 two-hour layovers), I had several experiences.

The sight from the plane, flying high over the twin cities, is an amazing view. The Mississippi River is broad and curves back and forth—a commanding sight. We finally landed (I think it was only an hour and forty-five minutes from Detroit to Minneapolis) and the most memorable memory I have of this fair city, is that split second where I felt blasting cold air on my skin when exiting the plane. That’s it. Blasting cold air.

Don and I were on our way to California in the middle of summer (end of August), and it was 70 degrees in Michigan and 110 degrees in Palm Springs. Minneapolis/St. Paul was 45 degrees. It sent a shiver up my spine, and I’ll never forget it.

Other things happened in Minneapolis, like when Don and I fought, and then when Don and I fought some more. And then there’s the time that Don and I got into a fight… You get the idea. We’re not layover kind of people.

OH!

And this was the airport where as soon as we got off the plane from California (on the way home to Detroit), the flight was delayed and then the next thing I know, I’m coming out of the bathrooms and they are paging overhead that because of a huge thunderstorm (and we all know how much I love those) our flight was leaving as soon as possible. Don and I had to run through the airport to get there, but had just enough time to stop for some Burger King.

I know that 22 is kind of young to be looking at where I want to spend my retirement, but I that’s all I could think about on my first trip to South Carolina. I was still in high school, maybe 16 or 17? I had convinced my family to stop at Biltmore Estate in NC on the way to Hilton Head Island in SC.

We went to South Carolina two times that year: once for Easter (Hilton Head) and once in August (Myrtle Beach). My sister and I had a great time at Hilton Head. It was our first ocean experience and all we wanted to do was jump in that damn Atlantic. Then we got to the beach. It was still pretty cold (March) and when we got to the sand, there were hundreds of dead jelly fish on the shore. We dipped our feet in the ocean, but neither of us dared to brave the waters that produced the carnage on the shore.

Hilton Head was picturesque. So much so that I knew instantly that I wanted to retire there. When Don and I were planning places we wanted to vacate to, Hilton Head was at the top of my list—somewhere that Don has never been to. We’re thinking about honeymooning at the Westin.

Myrtle Beach was a totally different experience. Not only were we there in the middle of the hottest heat wave ever (Miami doesn’t even come close), but the beach is a summer hot spot. I remember that we had an open air hallway on an upper floor. When I stepped out from the door, it was like walking into a wall of humidity. I’ve never felt such a strong humidity ever again.

There was a thunderstorm fiasco in Myrtle Beach. We went to Damon’s for dinner and the lightening started. Then they sat us in this floor to ceiling windowed room. And there were windows on the ceiling, too. And we were on the water. I nearly died.

A few nights later, I convinced my family to take it out to the House of Blues, which remains one of my most very favorite dining destinations (especially the Sunday Gospel Brunch as witnessed in Orlando). I can still taste the flank steak and mashed potatoes—one of the best meals of my life.

I have a bit of trivial information that may or may not ever be of use again. When we were at Hilton Head, my mom couldn’t take the time off of work to drive down with us, so she flew from DTW to Atlanta to Savannah. The Savannah airport is really cute, and it’s only a 30 minute drive from Hilton Head Island. And, there’s a fabulous outlet mall right on the main road, just before the bridge to the island.

NC was a stop that I requested on the way to Hilton Head Island one year. I was totally obsessed with Biltmore Estate: I was watching HGTV specials on it, looked it up on the internet, imagined living there one day. It’s the largest estate in America, not the largest house in America. I don’t remember how many, but they have acres of vineyards and gardens and lawns. I begged and pleaded to my parents to let us stop there and they did. I believe we still may have a bottle of wine from the Estate’s winery.

I remember how disgusting the house was. The pictures make it look huge, and by all means it is. However, this house was built at the end of the 19th century (read: no heating, cooling, modern plumbing). The ceilings were 6 feet and the beds were tiny. A kind-sized bed in those days was shorter than a twin today (and about the same width).

I was glad to get the hell out of the house and take some pictures (which I have very lovingly scrapbooked). Enormous expectations notwithstanding, it was an experience I’ll never forget.

The Tkach family made a pit stop on one of our many Florida trips. We ended up at the Marriott in Atlanta. It was one of those round towers with a huge atrium. There was a pool in there somewhere, but the Riz and the tato went up without me and the moms.

We got there in the early afternoon and walked around the city for a little while. I can’t remember what day it was. It must have been a Saturday because the CNN building was closed. No Larry King tour that day. We visited the Coca Cola museum and walked through the underground mall. I was in a big incense and candles phase at the time and remember buying tons of both plus keychains.

On our way back toward the hotel, a homeless guy accosted me. I’ve only been accosted in Toronto, so it was strange. I felt bad but I’ll never forget that feeling I had as I kept walking and tried to ignore that guy dressed in rags.

We had a good dinner at some sports bar (the All-Star Cafe?) and kept on keeping on to Florida the next morning.

We stopped in Knoxville one year and stayed at a Holiday Inn (for the first and last time, I hope). I remember being scared because I was going through a “just say no to country music” phase and didn’t know what TN was all about.

All I remember about Knoxville was the ice cream parlor we went to. I can’t remember the name for the life of me—the Big Dipper, maybe—but the Everly Brothers were playing on the jukebox (yes, there was a juke), and the tato said some words about loving the Everly Brothers. I don’t remember if we bought their Greatest Hits CD that day or someday around that day. But that’s my Knoxville souvenier.

On the trip down to Florida, Kentucky is the “are we there yet” state. Somehow, there’s the hour or two (depending on traffic) drive through Michigan, the three to four through Ohio, then comes the neverending drive through Kentucky. Four hours plus of driving I75 through hundreds of signs for illegal fireworks (they’re illegal in Michigan and Ohio) will really get to you.

The only Kentucky memory I have is the fact that we always stop for dinner there on the way back. And it’s somehow always at the same Cracker Barrel, but it’s hard to identify by MapQuest.

Our first big family vacation (other than visiting family in Toronto or going to our cottage in Canada) also included another big first in my life: my first airplane ride.

The year was 1989. The day was sometime around Thanksgiving. The destination was Walt Disney World.

I was seven and my sister was four. I remember that we stayed at the Caribbean Beach. I believe we had a chipmunk encounter at the Polynesian—maybe during a character luau or something. My sister and I wore matching fuchia paisley outfits (I should know, I still have the pictures).

The only memory I have is being so tired one night and my parents took us to one of the parks (maybe fireworks at Epcot?) and on one of the shuttles, I closed my eyes and sang along in my head to the radio: “Kokomo” by the Beach Boys. Somehow insignificant, I will never forget that moment.

And there’s one more: the part where the Riz harassed my tato until he took her on Space Mountain and I can’t remember if she threw up, but my moms and I were eating chocolate-covered Mickey Mouses on a bench near the exit and all I remember is her running toward us, crying and screaming.

Since then, we’ve driven to Florida, flown to Florida, flown while other family members drove, made pit stops in other states (I’ll blog about that later) on the way to Florida. And when it was time for me and Don to take our first big trip together (after Toronto), I picked Orlando as the place to ring in my 21st birthday. On AJ’s and my first big trip together (after Toronto—am I sensing a pattern), we planned a Miami getaway smack dab in the middle of hurricane season.

My moms loves Florida so much that she wants to retire there and work at the Disney Store in Downtown Disney (a glorious store, if I do say so myself). In fact, if my parents were to vacation there sometime soon, I would spring myself down just to hang out with them at DW. As much as I love to vacate with Don and AJ (yeah, right), I would give my left arm to go on vacation twice a year with my family.

Orlando ‘89 marked the first of many Orlando trips. In fact, the only time we didn’t hit Orlando as a family was when we visited my mom’s brother at his condo (he usually lives in Toronto) near Ft. Myers. But after we celebrated the New Year, we swung into high gear and put our golf clubs away and stayed at the Disney Institute so my moms could take some cooking classes and I could discover Celebration.

Don may not want to go back, but you had better believe that I love Orlando. And Ft. Myers. And Daytona. And Miami. And the Keys…