Wake up in your amazingly comfortable bed in a junior suite at the Hotel Sofitel at the unheard-of hour of 8:30 a.m. Enjoy a complimentary cup of delicious coffee from their restaurant.

Stroll over to Parc in Rittenhouse Square where you eat a leisurely brunch with a handsome man. Make sure you order the big basket of pastries and don’t worry about eating them all.

Discover that one of the best bookstores you’ve ever been in is right across the street from your hotel. Make a number of impulse purchases including a gorgeous book titled Les Trente-Six Vues de la Tour Eiffel. Dream of Paris a little, even as you are enjoying Philadelphia.

Leave reluctantly and wander over to South 13th Street, to explore the newly trendy stretch between Sansom and Chestnut, which is chock full of boutiques and restaurants that would make any school-aged boy roll his eyes and sigh. Browse and browse and browse some more. Talk about a lamp you might buy for your living room. Think about purchasing a cute purse. Then think about buying some chocolates.

Decide you are too full to buy chocolate and too practical to buy the purse, which can’t possibly hold snacks, crayons, or toys. Continue your aimless walk, enjoying the fact that no one is asking where you are going and when you will get there. Take pictures in Washington Square.

Stop inside Carpenter’s Hall, the only building in Independence National Historic Park you’ve never visited.

Walk some more. End up some distance away in Elfreth’s Alley, the oldest residential street in the United States.

Get a cab and return to your quiet hotel room to read your new books and change for dinner.

Dress up. Put on lipstick and maybe high-heeled shoes, so you feel like a real dame. Walk to The Franklin Mortgage and Investment Co. for a couple of old-fashioned cocktails in a chicly restored basement speakeasy. If you’re feeling bold, try the sexy, smoky Peckinpah which contains mescal, rum, housemade blackberry-habenaro syrup, and lime juice and will knock your socks off.

Grab a cab and head over to Fork (make sure you have a reservation though). Order an excellent and affordable bottle of French wine from their quirky list and enjoy a lovingly-prepared seasonal meal.  Whatever else you eat, share the tapas as a starter.

Retire to that blissful bed, replete.

And then (and here’s the critical part) hope that as you are driving to retrieve your children the next day you don’t get a phone call saying that one of them has taken an unfortunate fall off a piece of playground equipment and broken his right arm.

It’s going to be like meeting all of my heroes in person. I can’t wait!

On Sunday, I have the added treat of attending  the Travel Blog Exchange (TBEX) where some of the finest minds in the industry will share their secrets.

I intend to get my geek on in a big way, coming back with loads of ideas for how to make The Mother of All Trips even better. I’ll try to do some live blogging from the conference but if you don’t hear from me for a few days just assume it’s because I’m busy drinking Mai Tais while learning the ins and outs of search-engine optimization. Or just drinking Mai Tais.

I’ll be back next week of course, when I’ll be publishing a series of posts about what I learned on our recent road trip (here’s a taste: don’t ignore the fact that your car stereo is breaking when you’re planning to spend days in the car) and also writing about our annual trip to Vermont – we leave next Thursday for three weeks there. But for now, I’m going to blissfully enjoy traveling solo to network with all of those other awesome bloggers. It’s The Mother of All Blogging Trips – and boy am I ready!

It was indeed a dreamy couple of days. We lazed by the pool, soaked in the gorgeously landscaped outdoor Jacuzzi, enjoyed our own private balcony, and went for a stunning hike in the surrounding desert hills. The Copperwynd is built into the side of a mountain northeast of Scottsale and Phoenix and has been cleverly designed so that every room, both public and private, to say nothing of the two swimming pools and the aforementioned Jacuzzi, take full advantage of the view that is spread out beneath it.

Our room, which I booked for under $200 a night as part of the weekly Tuesday sale at hotels.com, had a king-sized bed with those requisite luxury Italian high thread-count sheets, a fireplace with a gas log, and a huge closet. It was blessedly quiet and in the morning the air was full of birdsong. The bathroom was enormous and had a deep tub that we put to good use (so nice to give myself and not anyone else a bath!). The picture at the top of this post is the view from our balcony.

With the exception of the room itself, nothing at the Copperwynd was cheap, but everything was of a uniformly high quality. Both the service and food in the restaurant (where we ate two breakfasts and one dinner) were excellent. I particularly like the breakfast menu, which includes such treats as Grand Marnier French toast and a frittata with chorizo that was so good Matt ate it twice. The wine list is small but interesting with a good range of prices. And the entire wall of the restaurant is made of windows, so even if it’s too chilly to sit outside on the patio you can still look at the mountains while you eat.

The resort offers many things that we didn’t take advantage of, including a full fitness center with lots of equipment and classes. There are also tennis courts (with private coaching) as well as numerous nearby golf courses. I didn’t make it inside the spa (rumor has it there were steam rooms in there) but did sit in the sunny manicure room, where I indulged myself in a manicure/pedicure provided by the cheerful, chatty Edna who hails from San Juan but has lived all over and had many stories to share. After paraffin treatments the skin on my hands and feet felt like silk and I was reduced to a kind of mellow bliss that made it challenging just to climb the stairs and find Matt so I could get to the all-important task of continuing to admire the view while drinking a margarita.

It was easy enough to drive into both Scottsdale and Phoenix from the resort – we went to dinner in Scottsdale one night and to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix on our last morning. But it would also be very easy just to retreat to this mountainside with some wine and bread and cheese (the room also came equipped with a refrigerator) and not leave for days. You could spend your time reading, relaxing, and exploring the surrounding desert, communing with the ever-present saguaros.

I know that this all sounds wonderful and fantastic and that you’re probably thinking “Thanks a lot Mara, it’s not like I can drop a wad of cash at a fancy resort anytime soon or get anywhere near the Sonoran Desert.” But this post isn’t just meant to be a review of this particular resort. Rather, it’s a call to all of you parents out there, especially the traveling ones who cheerfully take their children every cool place they themselves go. I highly recommend arranging a getaway just for you and your significant other (or, if you’re single, for you and a friend or even just for you alone). It doesn’t have to be as expensive and hedonistic as this one was – if pitching a tent in your local state park or staying at a motel in a nearby city are more your style, go for it. The idea is simply to get a little bit of travel time away from the kids, time where you can be completely on your own schedule and don’t have to think about all the kinds of logistics that this blog traffics in. A time away from home when you can eat what you want when you want it, sleep as much or as little as you want, and just generally do what feels good to you. It doesn’t have to be a long time either – just two days and one night will do wonders. (Although I heartily recommend two nights if you can swing it. There’s something magical about that second morning of waking up on your own schedule.)

I know how challenging it can be to find a way to get away. I don’t have any family members living super close by, and between my kids and my  job and this blog and various other sundry projects I’m pretty busy. But let me assure you, it is worth the bother and the expense to arrange for this kind of time. And neither of my children is ever any the worse for it. In fact, they’re better off for having two refreshed and happy parents. The effect lasts for weeks – whenever I find myself getting stressed out, all I have to do is remember those two glorious mornings when I dozed for hours, listening to those desert birds.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to close my eyes and imagine I’m sitting in that outdoor hot tub. Oh yeah. That’s the ticket.

[One quick family-travel note: I actually do think that this would be a great place to bring the kids. The family pool is perfect for children of all ages and there is a Kids Club with planned activities, which judging from our experience with all of the staff and the other amenities there, is probably super. About five minutes away in Fountain Hills, there is a fabulous playground right by the large fountain and the hike that Matt and I did would be manageable for kids of all ages. But I honestly don't think I'm ever going to find out first-hand if this is a family-friendly place because we have already decided that this little getaway needs to become an annual tradition for us.]

My tip today is really super simple. It’s for all you intrepid traveling parents. All of you who love to throw baby into a backpack and hit the trail. All of you who bring your children to the fabulous hotels in great cities and teach them to eat foie gras off of china plates. I love you all. I admire you all. I tell you all: YOU MUST DO SOME TRAVELING WITHOUT YOUR KIDS!

Matt and I stole away for a delicious 36 hours on this trip. Included in our sojourn was a visit to the Desert Botantical Garden, a place I had planned to take the children. And I will. Next year. This year, I got to watch all of the other parents hauling around their sweaty offspring, stopping to provide snacks and water, and having to leave before they were ready. Me? I felt a little guilty. But just a little. Mostly I felt happy to cover every inch of the garden without worrying about someone else’s legs getting tired, to take tons of pictures of the amazing Dale Chihuly sculptures on exhibit, and even (gasp) to venture into the gift shop.

For Photo Friday at Delicious Baby. I hope you’ll stop by there to see the other pictures.

But what I really want to write about is how great a city Boston was to be in with a small baby. Little Lucy pictured above in the Public Garden (sadly the Swan Boats are put away for the winter) is the youngest of five and is just about the sweetest, easiest love of a baby you will ever find. She’s also at that great age when she can be hauled around everywhere. Remember those days? Napping on the go making , say, two hours in the esoteric Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum a snap? And if your children were breastfed, no need to carry any food? Lucy was lucky to be nursed in the square at the back of the Old North Church next to the statue of Paul Revere not once, but twice on this trip. Two if by sea.

But Lucy wasn’t the only one who made our trip fun and easy. I was amazed by the overwhelming friendliness and love shown by the Bostonians. My friend Julie and I were able to shop and eat in the brownstones lining Newbury Street because people kept offering to help us carry the stroller up and down the many steep and perilous stairs with our little maharani. And when we took her to the North End, Santa Lucia was the queen of the parade. No one grumbled about the stroller on the packed sidewalks and more than one person came up to coo over her and ask us whether we were going to get her a cannoli. Which I of course contemplated doing so I could eat it myself. (As it was we went to Mike’s Pastry on Saturday and Sunday night. Best cannoli yet.)

When Julie’s husband Pete wanted to go to dinner at Giacomo’s, a Hanover Street fixture that is always crowded, doesn’t take reservations, and is quite small and loud, I wasn’t sure we could swing it. But the line wasn’t bad, Lucy was compliant, and the waitress didn’t bat an eyelash when we announced our intention to bring her in. We were given a table for four, told which chair to put her carrier on (so she’d be out of the waitstaff’s way) and made to feel as welcome as everyone else. In fact, the waitress saw that we had left some of our gear hanging on the folded-up stroller in the entryway and marched us right out to her car so she could put it in the backseat. I can’t believe that Matt and I avoided eating there while we were in Boston with Tommy as a toddler; I certainly wouldn’t make that mistake again.

So there you have my ringing endorsement: Boston is a fantastic place to take kiddos of all ages.

Looking at this picture makes me realize that I am missing Lucy just a bit. It helps to know that I’m her absolute favorite. She told me so.

Look soon for a Fridays with Teddy post, which has now become a regular weekend feature. I’m trying to decide – do I keep Fridays in the title since we actually have the adventures then or switch it to Saturdays with Teddy since that’s when I usually put it up? In any event, our adventure this week will involve a corn maze. Stay tuned.