Back to Arizona

We headed back to AZ because Heather had some appointments scheduled, and, oh yeah, for Chelsea's graduation! She is finishing up a Masters in Criminal Justice this summer. She has all the classes but still needs to finish up her thesis. Since they don't have a graduation ceremony for those who finish in the summer, they have a choice of walking in May or waiting until December. Since Chelsea is supposed to be in Florida in December, now was the time.

We're very proud of her and how hard she has worked for this. I was even willing to wear pants for the first time in two months. I'm told the sticking your tongue out thing is from Gilmore girls. The picture with her boyfriend Travis doesn't really show just how tall he is.

Since our house is rented out now we did the AirBnB for the first time and ended staying in a very nice guest house north of Southern, coincidently just down from a couple of folks I used to work with. It was a little weird as an experience, but the place and the folks letting it were very nice, and the price was right.

We had almost finished moving out of the house and into one parking space in the garage after our last visit. We still had a side table mostly filled with crap we hadn't looked at in a decade, and the big closet downstairs. Got both of those sorted, donated, thinned and the remainder packed. Still haven't finished the hutch off of the kitchen because it contains a computer and monitor, printer, cable modem, router and such that they are still using. There's also a couple of pictures, most of which Chelsea is taking to Florida with her. Since almost all of the furniture is going when everyone moves out in the fall, we pretty much have our stuff thinned down to one parking space worth. When we come back we'll go through one more cycle of thinning, organizing and packing, and what'e left goes into a storage unit for a while.

Heather drove home for a few days to visit with her mother and extended family. I drove up the hill to have dinner with the Prescott Ruffners on the day after Mother's Day. We had a nice dinner at the Hassayampa across from the Elks theater. I stayed the night at my mother's house, maybe for the first time since I left town for Tucson in 1980. We had breakfast the next day at the St. Michaels hotel at the end of Whiskey Row. I remember sneaking into the bar that was downstairs when I was 15, facilitated by my fast-talking girlfriend of 17, to listen to a drummer. It seemed important at the time.

Next time we're in Arizona we'll have one more pass at thinning out our possessions and the remainder will go to a storage unit, the smaller the better. We're selling the convertible to Heather's brother Rex, and driving the Land Cruiser to Florida, hauling a trailer full of Chelsea's stuff to Tallahassee.

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