In my last post, I filled you all in on my upcoming, surprise trip. It’s an annual tradition my group of girlfriends has, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure our where we were headed based on the clues I’d received.

The most perplexing hint of all was an image of a basketball hoop. When a few of my friends and I arrived at the airport in LA, and printed our boarding passes, we learned that we were jetting off to Phoenix (PS: its sort of hilarious telling the person at airport check-in that you legitimately don’t know where you’re going). I was so excited about the trip and finally getting the destination, I completely forgot about the hints. So, you can only imagine my surprise when I walked into the house we rented, only to discover the entire living room and dining room was a basketball court. No exaggerating, it was a full-on Lakers status b-ball court. I laughed uncontrollably for five minutes solid.

Phoenix was pretty rad overall, and fall is the perfect time to travel there because it was 85 degrees and we hung at the pool all day. But the highlight, by far, was the fact that between bites of my dinner I could attempt a three-pointer.

Side note: I think I’ve mentioned this before, but to find great rental homes all over the world, check out vrbo.com and airbnb.com.