by Ann-Marie Murrell
My husband had a business trip in the Palm Springs area so we decided to make a mini-vacation out of it. Thanks to an amazing Groupon deal we stayed at one of the nicest places we’ve ever been to in our lives: The La Quinta Resort and Spa, a Waldorf Astoria Resort. All the rooms are exquisite with gigantic Jacuzzi bathtubs in every room, 41 exquisite swimming pools and 53 Jacuzzi’s scattered throughout the lush, floral-covered grounds.
We got there on a Thursday and were in Heaven. The resort was virtually empty so we had entire swimming pools all to ourselves all day. We went from pool to pool like little kids, staring at the mountains and palm trees surrounding us. I seriously wanted to cry from happiness.
I need to remind my readers—this is not the type of place we would ever normally be able to afford to stay. We got it through a combination of Groupon, work trip (aka write-off) and making a deal with each other to only eat bread and water the rest of the month.
Still, we decided we just had to stay another night—Groupon or not—and called the front desk. Immediately we were told us the resort was booked the entire weekend because of a huge LA Unified teacher’s conference. (Cue sound of spa music screeching to a halt)
TEACHER’S CONFERENCE? My mother was a public school teacher for over 44 years and I couldn’t imagine her—much less her school district– being able to afford such swanky digs for a weekend conference, especially here in broke, almost bankrupt Los Angeles! How could those poor, hard-working LA teachers afford to stay at the ultra-expensive, ultra-luxurious La Quinta Spa and Resort of all places? Why aren’t they having their conference in a more affordable place?
Oh yeah—all the eucalyptus leaves must have caused me to temporarily forgot where I lived. Strike yet another win for the real owners of the entire state of California: Unions.
As we were (sadly) checking out, there they were—lots of angry looking teacher-types arriving with their bags and ID tags around their necks. Then we saw the signs welcoming them to the United Teachers of Los Angeles 2011 Leadership Conference.
