Revisiting sites we've been before

When we were talking with "Santa" and "Mrs. Claus" this morning (see previous post), we mentioned that we had been in Palm Springs many years ago (my guess was 2002) for an award trip that I got from IBM. I guess that got both of us thinking about that trip, and we tried to find the hotel where we stayed that time. With the help of Google search and Google maps to look at the grounds in the satellite view, we figured that the hotel is now the Westin Mission Hills Golf Resort and Spa.

When we got there, we recognized the pool area and hotel room area, and the entrance looked kinda familiar too.

Driveway up to the Westin Mission Hills

Entrance portico

This was the area that made us really know we were at the right place - we both remembered a "dinner" or happy hour at the pool where they had baked potatoes (or potatoes with all the trimmings of a baked potato) in a martini glass. We've had those since at other events, but I think that was the first time we had experienced that offering!

We remembered that our room was down this way - along the golf course.

And this was approximately the view we had from our room!

A selfie at the Westin Mission Hills

Since I don't remember exactly when we went, I don't have any idea which manager I had at the time, nor do I know if he or she reads this blog, but... I wanted to let any IBM manager that *might* have sent me that we had a great time when we originally went, and we had a great time today going and remembering our stay there. We remembered that Ronan Tynan was the entertainment and motivational speaker, which got us interested in listening to the Irish Tenors. We went out for dinner in Palm Springs one night and the host of Trading Spaces, Paige Davis, was eating at a table near us. One of the welcoming gifts that we were given was a Fuji digital camera - this was when digital photos were still quite new, and to get a pocket sized one was really nice. It reminded us of happy memories of my IBM days.

We also remembered that Ginni Rometty was the IBM executive who was on hand for the event. One of the evenings, we were all in small groups during a happy hour type of event and it happened that Dwayne and I were with a group of her co-workers (or people who worked for her) and her husband. She was "working the room", talking with each of the small groups, and I was looking forward to her coming to speak with us, but when she saw our group, she said, "Oh, I know you." and turned to speak to other folks whom she did not know. I was disappointed, but could understand that she would want to spend time with other folks that she didn't know. My one chance to get to meet an IBM exec... oh well!