I’ve been watching Peter Santentello’s YouTube travel channel for a few years now. Peter’s channel is part of the the reason I pay for YT, as his videos are often 1-2 hours, and I’m not keen to getting dozens of ads listening to his content (and more) each time I queue one up. On his weekly videos, he tries to document the “hidden side” of various destinations throughout the world: All over the the states, Iran, Latin America, and lots more. I recently watched this video on Fairhope, Alabama,
and was interested in visiting. On mentioning watching the video to my parents, they mentioned the same town was on their list to visit! They recently sold their Florida home, and we decided to meet on their drive home from Florida back to Winnipeg.
I had already booked a ticket to Arizona to speak at EUC Community legend Steve Greenberg’s event EUC Unplugged April 19-21, 2024, so, I adjusted my vacation to fly out on April 12, 2024 to Mobile, Alabama, where I used Turo to book the sexy new Toyota Prius with 200 HP and AWD 2024 to get around
I’m a big fan of Toyota – thus why I’ve got a Lexus – however, HP is HP, and CVT is the devil’s work. The driving experience of the new Prius was flat, worse, the user experience was just terrible. A trunk that wouldn’t open cleanly, confusing climate controls, and a number of drive assist features that I couldn’t easily disable. Perhaps related JUST to my rental, but once I got her up to about 120 KM on the highway, the entire car vibrated oddly. Anyway, I ain’t ruling out owning a hybrid at some point in my life, but it won’t be the new Prius
A collection of pix of my parents, me and coffee bean in Fairhope, Alabama 😎
I flew out from Mobile, Alabama > Phoenix, Arizona on April 15, 2024, where I picked up car #2 on the trip, a lovely black inside and out BMW X5 40i. This Turo rental had purpose, as I’m interested in switching from my current 2017 Lexus IS 350 F sport to an SUV in the next year for 2 reasons:
✅On-going DIY work that involves shifting items like wood and rock
✅Higher wheel base to deal with heavy snow
As I arrived early in Arizona, I had time to visit some fun sites. For instance, the botanical desert garden:
And the next day, off to Tucson! Where I visited this cool desert church called San Xavier Del Bac Mission
Some pix of Barrio Viejo and and lunch with the dog in Tucson , then it time to head back home to the AirBNB in Scottsdale!
The conference started on Friday, so I had some time Thursday to visit Papago park to check out this cool “hole in a rock”, I took coffee bean, but as it was 30 C / 90 F, I kept our time outside to a minimum
The event! This is my second time attending Steve Greenberg’s event called “EUC Unplugged”. What I love about the event, is that it’s not a pure technical event, with tons of tech talks from vendors, instead, you’ve got a variety of presentations. Many of the topics that are presented occur organically via a voting process, where people submit their ideas in a round circle, and people vote by placing stars on the related topics (shown below)
My own topic was voted on, and I got to do a presentation on a decision making process that I follow in my life, which you can read here if you’re interested:
I wasn’t able to extend my stay at the pet friendly Airbnb for my final day at the pet-friendly AirBNB, so had to take the bean with me to the conference before checking into a second hotel before my flight home. I had her hidden behind the speaking podium, but she she started to cry a bit. A few folks in the audience didn’t believe me when I said I had a dog back there , so I pulled her out and did part of my speech as shown in the pic 😂
In summary ; this Alabama / Arizona trip has been my most enjoyable trip in the past 6 years of solo travel. I got to see my beloved parents in small-town Alabama, then to my favorite state Arizona to explore, speak at my favorite tech event with my little travel companion
Thanks for reading and have a great day 🙂
Owen
GetvPro 