Trip to Arizona

Attempting to plan a 2-3 day weekend trip to Arizona. Figuring on Scottsdale or Phoenix. Starwood seems to have some lovely spa hotels in the area. Also thinking of perhaps checking out the real estate there, I wonder if its enough time though...

The only airlines that fly there direct appear to be America West and Continental. Since I'm (as always) attempting to go there for free using miles, I couldn't book anything short notice. Oh pooh. Perhaps the next time I get a weekend off.....

A tree grew in Hawaii

This is one of the trees in Kauai that was used in the filming of the first Jurassic Park movie. They're located in a nature preserve full of other amazing stuff.

A sucker for a nice lobby

For no apparent reason, I'm always smitten by a hotel with a nice lobby. Why, I couldn't tell you--its not like I'm gonna sleep there, or eat there, or even sit there really...but regardless of all of that, when I see a nice lobby, I automatically fall in love with the entire hotel. This picture here is from the Riu on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

Travel Question

Would you go to the Middle East? If so, where?

Red Sea Panoramic

This shot probably doesn't do it justice--it doesn't capture the deep deep blue of the Red Sea (go figure). This view actually captures the border of Israel with Egypt.

Planting Fields

Travel can be local too:
This is one of the flowers from Planting Fields Arboretum on Long Island (about 30 min away from where I live).

Planning Tahiti

I'm thinking of going to Tahiti in the end of January. It sounds like its far off in terms of time, though there's a very specific reason why I should probably start looking into it already:

I want to go there using frequent flyer miles. Yup, THAT should be an interesting endeavor. There's a catch too. I want to use the frequent miles from Starwood. Which means I gotta transfer them. Somewhere. In other words, plenty of stuff to figure out.
Any and all suggestions welcome.