Seventeen years ago when I started with United and was based in Chicago, our layover hotel was a Holiday Inn in Riverside. Then it changed to a Sheraton in Ontario not too far from the airport because we always got there in the dark of night and left there in the dark of the next morning. In spite of the fact there was an In 'n Out Burger at the very extreme corner of the hotel complex parking lot, I never got to go because it was always closed during the hours we were there.
So, when I got my assignment for March last month, I saw that I had a pretty decent layover after an evening flight to Ontario at the beginning of a four-day trip. I was actually going to be there until noon when our contracted pick-up service would be there to drive us back to the Ontario Airport.
It was a pretty long drive from the airport to this new layover hotel. As we sped through the night, both sides of the freeway were bright with the twinkling lights of small communities and lots of garish light at retail centers. Maybe this would turn out to be a decent layover after all. I do like to poke around curious little shops and antique/thrift stores. But we passed all of those as we drove on into the late evening.
We finally reached our destination 25 minutes later, and as we turned from the main street in old town Riverside around the corner to the Hilton Hotel, I saw the sign for a Curves exercise facility just across the street. Huge letters spelling C U R V E S were painted on the back wall of a strip mall.
Now, it has been a long, long time since I went to Curves on any layover. The Curves facilities I used to frequent in Chicago, Boston, San Antonio, Calgary, Detroit, and Boise, among others, are all closed now--just like most of them around the Denver-Fort Collins-Colorado Springs area. So, I was fully expecting this location to be permanently closed, as well.
But when I called it the next morning about 6:30, a real live person answered and assured me, "Yes, that Curves was not only still operating, it was open." I called my Curves in Loveland to see what I needed to do to go to someone else's club. I used to carry a traveling pass, then we got nationwide tie-in through a computer system that is triggered by each members personal key tag. Only my key tag was in my exercise shoes in my car at the employee parking lot at DIA. All the Curves I knew of on previous layovers were long gone. Why carry one more thing on my trip I didn't need?!?!?! Lona at Loveland told me to have the owner call her and she would verify my membership.
The Curves facility was in a gentrified downtown walking area of Riverside. It was an attractive street with lots of shops that didn't open until 10 or 11 am. That was a bummer, but for the first time in years I could exercise away from home like I used to. And the owner....she took one glance at me and said I looked like a Curves member, so no need to call my home club in Loveland. She believed me. Only had to fill out the requisite health release for their files. Then here was the frosting on the cake.....that particular visit turned the counting machine over to my 1300th visit since I began going to Curves in March 2007!
Oh, I used to be so diligent. I would go work out when I got home from United or to a club along the way home in Brighton, North Glenn, Fort Lupton, Firestone, etc. etc.. I would go on my layovers. I would go EVERY day that Curves was open on my days off and on the days before I had to leave for DIA for a trip. I would push myself to do more than the machines demanded. I always did the stretching exercises after. I maxed myself in every way. Most of the time I went at least three times a week, lots of months four times a week, and sometimes I set a goal to go all six days in a week if at all possible with my schedule! In short, I was a poster child for Curves. And by now I should have reached the 1500 mark except that....
.....one by one the clubs started shuttering their doors. There was no longer any place to work out on my way home from DIA. And then by the time I got home, it would be too late to drive up to Curves in Loveland to my own club. Then it was skip going all together when I had something more pressing to do at home--like the Christmas season I put up the Nativity sets in three solid 15 hour days. I didn't even leave the house on those days. Sometimes when I arrived at Curves I would just do one time around the circuit instead of doing everything twice. When Curves affiliated itself first with Jillian Michaels of the Biggest Loser fame, then with Jenny Craig diets, I really lost interest. There is all this extraneous stuff like Zumba, five minute intense workouts, body challenges. Not interested! Too bad my advancing age AND the fact I have petered out have combined to make my body a doughy soft replica of its former self. I don't like how I have come to look. But not enough to get back into better habits and a healthier me. Hate to think of how much more I will deteriorate once I am no longer an active flight attendant as I go skidding along to the next decade of my life.
Hey, sometimes it is all I can do to get myself into the car and go there at all! I have been known to DRIVE INTO THE PARKING LOT then turn around and DRIVE RIGHT AWAY FROM THERE. Exercise is NOT my forte. And no, I don't just "feel so good" (like Louis says he does) when I am pushing myself in an exercise routine. Plus, I've never broken a sweat in my life. I feel the best when I am finished and walking out the door knowing I don't have to make the attempt again until my next available 90 minutes which includes drive time AND the 30 minute circuit. These days I give myself credit just for showing up!
Let's face it, my idea of exercise always was, and always will be, simply turning the pages of a dang good book! Still 1300 times I actually made it to Curves in the last seven years IS pretty remarkable for me.
So, when the counter struck 1300, I gave myself a pat on the back and went looking for a donut shop to celebrate!
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