Sisters and Sun

I went on a getaway with my sisters last month: that’s six sisters leaving 32 children and six supportive husbands to spend time together in sun country during the grey winter weeks. Since all of us are busy moms, we set the date months ahead of time and bought plane tickets. The flights to Phoenix were relatively cheap, and we pictured ourselves basking by the pool in the lovely warmth, miles from our usual snowy abodes.

A few weeks before our vacation, I called up my favorite hotel chain to book a few rooms for the weekend. Since nothing special happens in January, I had put off making the reservations, but it was time to finalize plans. “I’ll need two rooms on Friday and two on Saturday,” I told the receptionist, stirring the soup while I held the phone on my shoulder. She paused and I heard clicking in the background.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have any rooms available that weekend,” she finally said. “What? But you have several dozen hotels in the area,” I said. “I know,” she confessed. “But strangely, everything seems to be full.” “What’s happening in Phoenix that weekend?” I asked. “I have no idea,” she said with a sigh. “But I wasn’t invited.” “Me neither,” I said grumpily.

I emailed my sisters, and we decided to stay two hours south in Tucson where we booked the last two available rooms. “It must be some silly convention,” I muttered. “What could be happening in Phoenix that weekend anyway?”

Despite the hotel disappointment, we packed our bags and prepared for fun. Then, the day before we left, my mom emailed. “Is the Super Bowl in Phoenix this weekend?” I was shocked and quickly got online to look it up. Yep. Booked hotels and all, the world was going to Phoenix with us.

We headed to the airport in the grey winter weather. “Which team are you for?” asked the folks ahead of us in line. “Hawks,” someone else answered. Other passengers were dressed in colorful gear. “We don’t even know who’s playing in the Super Bowl,” I told the lady next to me. “We’re just here for the shopping and sun.”

But the weather had other plans. We stepped off of the small plane into a drizzle of rain with no umbrellas and hardly a warm coat among us. Oh well. Smiling faces from my sisters made up for the sun. We hugged and laughed and talked and talked and talked. We hit a crowded restaurant in festive Phoenix and then sped down to Tucson.

Nothing can describe the special bond between sisters. “Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters.” The popular tune from “White Christmas” played in my mind all weekend. Swapping stories, staying up late, sharing advice and laughing ourselves silly. The six of us hadn’t vacationed together for years.

Despite the drizzly non-stop rain on Saturday, we spent hours in the bookstore discovering stories we had grown up with. We took a trip through the drive-through for thick chocolate shakes, made a stop at the craft store that turned into hours of fun and finally bought pizza before we settled into our hotel rooms with popcorn and chocolate. We compared notes about raising children, shared hints for surviving pregnancy and even discussed house-keeping ideas. Conversational topics that would bore husbands and children.

On Sunday, we woke up to fog and flooding, but our spirits stayed high. As we headed back to Phoenix and the airport, the freeway flow suddenly came to a standstill. Police bikes in front of us, their lights flashing, halted all lanes of traffic. We waited, stunned and not sure what was going on. Then, on the overpass above us, we saw two huge busses pull across the road and then down onto the freeway. The officers stayed with them, and the traffic slowly started again as we followed the unmarked travel busses.

“The Super Bowl!” my sister reminded us. “Oh yes! It must be one of the teams.” We took pictures through our windshield, although the dark windows of the buses revealed nothing. And then they were ahead of us, and traffic was back to normal. By that time the rain had stopped and the sun was out as well.

We enjoyed our last few hours with a final walk and lots of chatter, and then we were back on the plane heading home to winter. “Not much of sun or Super Bowl,” we decided. “But the shopping and sisterhood were definitely worth it.” Next time we plan a sisters’ weekend, however, I think I’ll not only consult my sisters, but the weather station, the national news and the sports channel. You never know what worldwide events could throw a wrench in the perfect vacation.