OK, it may be over a year away but why not start a thread on 2011 Short Course (Spring) Nationals? This meet will be held at the newly-renovated Kino Aquatics Center in Mesa, which is just east of Phoenix. So go ahead and pipe in, I'm sure we will get some good conversation flowing.
If my last event on Saturday is 50 Breaststroke (event 26), would I be safe to book a return flight at 5:00pm?While a timeline will be published, you'll probably need to book your flight (especially with what's happening with airfares these days) before that comes out. If I were you, I'd look at the timelines from Atlanta and Clovis (links below) and build an estimated timeline for this meet. I would imagine that the meet numbers are going to be in the range of those meets and certainly not larger. The order of events is different, but it shouldn't be hard to estimate a Mesa timeline from these data.
www.usms.org/.../timeline.pdfwww.usms.org/.../timeline.pdf
If you are renting car from the Phoenix airport, though, make sure to budget enough time. Like most big city airports, we have one of those off airport centralized parking structures that absurdly make it a pain-in-the-*** for our visitors to arrive and depart when renting a car.
Some other ideas just in the Valley of the Sun metro area:
There's also at least a dozen great-to-do eating establishments here, chief among them Pizza Bianco (NYTimes best pizza in America, dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/.../), my favorite burger and shake at Zinburger (www.foxrestaurantconcepts.com/zinburger.html) and my personal splurge dining favorite at Binkley's (binkleysrestaurant.com/).
Phoenix New Times online edition is a great source for Valley of the Sun eating, entertainment and events (www.phoenixnewtimes.com/).
Hiking fans sticking around after the meet have multiple places to choose from in greater metro area and the local paper's online edition is a great source for hikes (www.azcentral.com/.../).
If you like wine, there are some surprisingly good wineries north of town. Here is a link to the map:
www.arizonavinesandwines.com/.../Northern_Arizona_Wine_Tour.pdf
Oh, and the ones in the Cottonwood/Clarkdale/Cornville area are only a short drive from Sedona.
Thanks for the travel/airport info. Since the latest flight I can book is 6:30pm with a plane change and 4 hours of travel for a 1.25hr. flight, I chose to stay another night. The additional expense may be worth incurring rather than the increase in anxiety.:applaud:
Thanks for the travel/airport info. Since the latest flight I can book is 6:30pm with a plane change and 4 hours of travel for a 1.25hr. flight, I chose to stay another night. The additional expense may be worth incurring rather than the increase in anxiety.:applaud:
We made the same choice; a good move, I think. Besides, now you can :chug: on your last night and celebrate! :banana:
If my last event on Saturday is 50 Breaststroke (event 26), would I be safe to book a return flight at 5:00pm?
I would definitely book a later flight . . .
