7th Trip Outside - The 2nd Week

It seems like I hadn't been in Idaho very long before I had to be on a plane for Arizona.  Very early on the morning of March 31, I snuck out of the house and drove to Twin Falls to catch a plane.  Changed planes in Salt Lake City and landed in Phoenix a little after 9 then drove on to Coolidge to Mom's house.

We ate lunch and then went to town to do a little shopping.  Mom wanted to stop by the Dollar Store to pick up some greeting cards.  I don't know how many cards she sends a month but that is her hobby and she has a long list of people to send to - birthdays, anniversary, graduation etc.  I wanted to go to the grocery store to get some food - whether frozen or fresh that wasn't filled with carbohydrates in the form of pasta or rice.

Saturday evening my sister Suzy and brother-in-law dropped by to visit a while.  They had been gone to have a memorial for his mother and to inter her ashes at the Pima Cemetary.  On Sunday morning, they were going over to help their oldest son clean his old house so it could be sold.

That night, when I checked my e-mail, I had received an e-mail about a travel bug that was on my watch list.  Back in 2006, when I was visiting Arizona, my sisters introduced me to geocaching.  Suzy had found a travel bug called the Root Beer Roamer which was a tag attached to a tiny plastic A&W mug.  She placed it in the 2nd cache we went to so that I could retrieve it and take it back to Montana with me.  I had watched it over the years and was sad when I saw it had disappeared.

April  2006 - white bird cache near Roscoe

The e-mail said they were going to release the copy of the tag so that the Root Beer Roamer could continue it's journeys.  I decided if it was anywhere near Coolidge, I would have to pick it up to bring it back to Alaska.

Sunday morning, I got up, ate breakfast and went for a nice long walk around Coolidge.  Around noon, a nephew stopped by to visit a bit and Mom and I followed him back over to his brothers.  We visited a bit while they finished cleaning then we all went for pizza and wings (I had a salad and resisted the pizza although I really wanted to eat a piece).

That afternoon Polly, Craig and a grandson came over and visited a bit.  Then later, Suzy, Carter, Polly's grandson and I went to hike F mountain in Florence.  I had never been up there before but it was a nice walk.

At the top of the mountain is a pyramid that covers the grave of Charles Poston known as "The Father of Arizona" due to the fact he lobbied so hard to get the U.S. Government to form the Arizona territory.  Sad thing I discovered while looking on the internet to see who was buried there, is that the "Father of Florence" - the man who laid out the town of Florence was originally buried on his family property there and in the early 60's when someone built appartments on that property, they built them on top of the family graves instead of moving them.

It was a beautiful sun-shine filled day but was not hot at all.  A few minutes after I took this last picture, Carter started yelling at us to get out of there.  Apparently they had ticked off a few bees.  Carter got stung a few times on his head but the rest of us were unharmed.  We did walk down the hill a little fast though.

For dinner that night, I made spaghetti sauce and cauliflower.  There was enough left for another meal but since it looked like our evenings were going to be a little busy, I put the extra in the freezer in small containers so Mom could eat it later.

That evening, Mom, niece Elise and I drove Carter to Phoenix to a friends house.  He was going to be flying home the next day.  After dropping him off, we stopped by the Claim Jumper for a late evening snack and got back home about 11:00.

Monday morning, I was up nice and early to work.  I worked all day and during a discussion with some co-workers decided that I might be going to Phoenix on Wednesday to teach SQL to a client (since I happened to be in the neighborhood).  That evening, my sisters, brothers-in-law and I took Mom to Florence to the LB Inn for an early birthday dinner.

Tuesday morning, I again got up early to work.    It was a busy day what with doing support and preparing a sql class for the client in Phoenix on Wednesday.  I got another e-mail about the Root Beer Roamer and found it had been placed in a cache near Casa Grande which wasn't too far away.  I was determined to grab it.

I finished work and told Mom to get dressed because we were going geocaching.  It was a nice drive over to the area where the cache was.  We stopped by a bank long enough for Mom to cache a birthday check she had received.  Then a short while later, I had retrieved the travel bug from the cache and had it safely tucked away in my purse for the trip back to Alaska with me.

Root Beer Roamer - picture from geocaching.com

Tuesday evening we went over to a family friends house for dinner.  This particular lady loves to cook and so every Tuesday evening, she cooks dinner for whoever wants to come over.  Nothing fancy, just a lot of people gathering together to eat a little home cooked food.  After eating, the kids colored a few easter eggs and then we went home.

Wednesday morning, I got up early and headed to Phoenix.  Since the client's office was downtown, I wasn't sure how long it would take to get to down there with morning traffic.  Fortunately the traffic was light and it only took an hour.  I spent the day with the client going over SQL and tables and at 4:00 started the trip home.

It took over 2 hours to get back home.  The traffic was horrid and was just crawling.  Stop and go, stop and go.  I am so grateful I do not live anywhere that I have to deal with that kind of traffic on a daily basis.

I got back to Coolidge just in time to grab a little something to eat.  Suzy and Morris showed up and we drove out to the Fairgrounds to go to the circus.  It was just a tiny circus but we wanted to get there early to get a good seat since we were planning to push Mom in in the wheelchair as it was quite a walk.

The circus was pretty good although expensive for all the extras.  They had an intermission during which they charged people to ride a pony or take an elephant ride.  Elise's kids rode the animals while we watched.  There weren't a lot of people there and the building (nope they didn't have a big tent) was so short that when one elephant reared up on the back of the other, it's head almost touched the ceiling.

We got home kind of late and went immediately to bed.  I was awaken about 3:30 the next morning by my Mom who said she was having problems breathing.  I called Suzy for advice and she told me to take her to the new hospital near Florence.  I got dressed and we started out.  Suzy pulled up also just as we got there.  We took her into the emergency room and they put her in a bed and started monitoring her heart.  

We were there for several hours before they decided she had a virus.  They said that there is nothing you can do for a virus so I took her home.  I teased her about wanting to start her birthday early by going for a drive.

I worked the rest of the day.  Then we went over to Polly's for a family dinner for Mom's birthday.    Her 91st.  I had left my camera and even my phone at Mom's so didn't get any pictures.  But Jodi shared a couple with me.

Happy 91st - courtesy of Jodi

Friday morning - April 6, I got up early to work.  I worked all day and then headed to Phoenix for my flight to Portland. 

I got into Portland at 7:50 that night and was picked up by Val, her friend and Grandpuppy Alex.  Alex did sound a little excited to see me when I got in the truck and she realized who I was.   Val told me that the lumps in Alex's neck had returned.  We went back to Val's house where her and her friend were finishing painting the kitchen.  

Since I hadn't eaten dinner, Val took me to DQ so I could pick up some food including a caramel sundae for Alex.  We stayed up too late which was bad since we had a busy day ahead of us on Saturday.

We got up fairly early and started cooking meat for red chile.  The plan was for Val to finish up the painting in her kitchen and straighten her house while I made chile, tortillas etc for dinner that night.  I told her to invite some friends over and I would cook dinner for them.  We spent the whole day cooking and cleaning and were still cooking when her friends started showing up.

Some of them hadn't had chile rellenos before but I think they liked them.  They were not spicy.

Shortly after everyone left, I was ready to crash.

Sunday morning, we got up and went to the Bleu Door bakery for some monkey bread.  Sadly, they said they don't make it this time of year because it's too cold so I got something else instead.  It wasn't near as good but I will try again this fall when I go down.  I did get some bacon dog cookies for Alex.

Then we went and did some shopping.  We bought a new light for her kitchen and some hardware for the cupboard doors.  We also stopped by PetCo to pick up some catfood and I bought some cookies for Alex.

She is going to paint the cupboards first and then will put them on.  We did install the light that day though - at least Val did with a little assistance from me.  It sure brightened up the kitchen.

Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the kitchen but it is starting to look pretty nice in there.

On Monday morning, April 9, we woke up early.  Val had to go to work but she was feeling pretty bad.  I was going to work a half day before the taxi picked me up to take me to the airport for my 11:30 a.m. flight home.

Val told me to make sure and give Alex some treats before I left.  So after I had everything packed up, I went outside where Alex was laying on her outside bed to give her some cookies.  She at them and then I tried to get a couple of pictures of her since I was afraid it would be the last time I would see her.

Typical Alex - since "mama" wasn't there to make her pose nicely, she refused to look at the camera.  Then the cab pulled up and I had to get out of there.

The flight home was fairly uneventful.  I sat next to a guy in his mid-30's or so who was going to Alaska for the first time.  He was all excited as he had gotten hired on for a job as a welder at Fort Yukon to help build a fuel tank farm.  He had lots of question but in talking to him, it sounded like he wasn't going to see much as he would be flying to Fort Yukon the next day and then would work 10 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 4 months.

John was at the airport to meet me when I got in at 4:30 that afternoon.  It was great to be back home once again.  It had warmed up quite a bit and spring was on the way as the snow was melting.  It's going to be a wonderful (albeit short) summer.