Sometimes when I'm bored I head to AA.com and enter a random destination, just to see how much it would cost for me to travel there. Don't tell my boss.

So today I checked on flights from Abilene to Vancouver and found the cheapest roundtrip ticket for $693, leaving Feb. 12, the first day of the Winter Games, and returning on the 15th. The flight leaves here in the afternoon, has a short layover in Dallas, and we're in beautiful Western Canada by dinner time.

Sounds lovely, but what about lodging? The best price that Hotels.com shows is $250 a night at the Super 8. And that's in an inland suburb of Vancouver. I do have a friend in Kelowna (yes, home of Bachelorette Jillian) whose parents built a multi-million dollar house in order to sell it and turn a profit, and as far as I know it's sitting empty. Wonder if they'd go for the Super 8 price.

It's important to mention the American dollar is almost exactly on par with the Canadian dollar right now: US $1 = CA $1.03.

Let's pretend for fun that there are no taxes or fees involved. And my husband and I won't be eating anything for four days.

So we pick some events we want to attend. How about a his and hers ticket set -- figure skating and snow boarding. The cheapest tickets for both are priced at $50. So we spend $200 attending two events. Remember, no taxes or fees in our fantasy vacation.

We'll spend the rest of our coastal vacation visiting free museums and checking out the beach. A typical bus ride will cost $5 or less, depending on how far we travel. We'll budget a modest $50 for that.

So, we've now forked over about $2,400. Okay, I'm not going to starve myself for four days, and we will need a taxi to and from the airport. I'll splurge another $300.

You know, NBC airs all the events for free... I think we'll stay home.