Countdown to Arizona: A marathoning vacation with my Dad

Here are a few pictures of recent trips my Dad and I have taken. However, to date all our trips have involved attending/presenting at a conference. In 2007, my dad joined me at the DIA conference in Atlanta and in 2008 we did a joint presentation about professional development and identifying/ securing professional positions at the DIA conference in Boston.

At the Atlanta Aquarium in 2007, when my dad joined me at the DIA conference.

My dad at the Atlanta Aquarium looking at the fishes swimming around (he's the gentleman with the camera strap...guess the camera as an appendage is genetic!)

With my Dad during the DIA conference in 2007 at Atlanta

At the DIA conference in June 2007 during a reception at the Museum of Art in Boston. I think my dad really enjoyed the conference, the Museum, as well as seeing all the historic sights in Boston. When I was a kid, he would take my sister, mom and I to conferences which were always fun. You get to see a city, get educated, acquire lots of trinkets and typically eat alot better than at home:-)

Tommorrow at this time I should be in Arizona! I am very excited. This will be my first marathon in Arizona and the second in a string of Western States in which I will be marathoning (from Dec-Feb I should add four states: CA, NV, AZ and TX).

My dad's 70th birthday is next week, so we are celebrating early by having our first father/daughter vacation in about 10 years. I have 2 holidays next week as a Federal worker in the DC area so this will be a 5 day vacation. And I am able to use another of my Southwest frequent flier trips (I LOVE Southwest!). In fact I just earned another roundtrip from our trip to Disney, and am already dreaming of how to use it.

During our trip I will volunteer at the EXPO (so if you see me, say hi!), run the marathon then we'll do some hiking in Sedona.

I plan to try to convince my dad he should run a marathon with me (I have plenty of friends who are in their 70's who are running marathons and it seems everyone else is running with their family). Granted I have run with Tristan, my husband and Cindy, my sister but I think if my dad ran a marathon with me he would stop suggesting I will hurt my knees create some chronic injury. Maybe I should become my dad and start sending him articles supporting my side of this argument (my dad tends to send me copies of articles and brochures....he does this alot which cracks me up! How many of you get copies of articles for budgeting, health screenings, general life advice, etc.? In college I would typically get 2-3 a semester;-) What's even worse is now I find myself doing this to people. I guess we become our parents!

So far the weather looks perfect. It appears the weatherman copy pasted the weather forecast and it will be 50 in the morning and 75 in the afternoon in Phoenix. In Sedona it is slightly cooler (which by the way I got sent a message from my dad reminding me of this;-) with a low of 30 and high of 65!

This trip should be fun. My camera battery is charged and the digital stick is empty so I am all ready!